My post this week about personas actually comes from the book I am reading for my book review. (This is not, however, my review of the book…just some insightful information shared from the book that I think speaks perfectly to the notion of personas).
When considering personas, the most ideal situation would be to know the audience exactly. Pinpointing an exact audience, however, does create some issues when considering web or app design because knowing exactly every type of person who will engage with the design is really challenging to determine.
Therefore, when considering user design and user experience, knowing precisely what to ask to determine usership is not only challenging, but probably impossible given the many variables that exist in usership. That said, some targeted projects – like the one I’m using for my UX Project for the course – may be able to give generalities about potential users, simply because the materials they are using are highly specialized and typically only appeal to a certain kind of user.
Given the variables surrounding user types and persona potentials, how can UX designers and UI compilers determine the best way to understand different users and their varietized approaches to interface experiences?
As Everett McKay points out, rather than focusing on the differences between users and their personas (because its costly, time consuming, and not always reliable because you can never get a large enough representative data set), focus on their similarities (60).
BRILLIANT, right????
What McKay is trying to point out is that even though users are different in many ways, there are a set of almost universal attributes that most users will utilize when it comes to user interface and user experience that could potentially reduce much of the work of persona development for UX design. For McKay, its not that he is against personas – he actually thinks they can be quite useful, – but he recognizes that cost, time, and data often make persona development difficult for even the most skilled UX team and designers.
To simplify the design practice, McKay offers several generalized assumptions about users that can help UX designers in their planning, should persona development not be possible:
- Users know the essentials of technology engagement
- BUT “make it clear what your program does, how to do its tasks, and what the options are…make it easy for users” (61).
- Users are motivated by value.
- THUS, make their time count by making the benefit of accomplishing whatever task is required worth their time and effort
- Know the top questions most users ask about design interface.
- THEN design your program to answer these questions easily for users.
- Users can figure things out.
- BUT… keep things simple, standard, intuitive, self-explanatory, and consistent (62).
- Users will and won’t do things
- SO, remember “users are focused on THEIR work, not on learning how to use your UI” and don’t force them to perform unnecessary steps (63)
- Users need confidence to perform the tasks.
- THEREFORE give them confidence they can use your design and interface by making it easy to use, intuitive, clear, and communication centered.
In other words, knowing personas might be helpful in designing a user experience that is dedicated to meeting a variety of perspectives and types of people who most likely will engage with the design and interface. However, knowing that most users operate with the same generally approaches to material design, perhaps a focus on the similarities between individuals can make UX designs and interfaces easier to consider and more universal than we often like to think they are.
As for personas in my upcoming UX Case Study…my material is such a niche collection, that I think the best personas I would find myself developing are nuanced versions of essentially the same kinds of individuals – researchers interested in women’s oral histories, Mormon women, women’s histories, religious women’s histories, or similar. In other words, my perception thus far about this collection is that mostly researchers would engage with the Mormon Women Oral Histories Collection…therefore, is attention to the nuance for this that important? Probably not.
Works Cited
McKay, Everett. UI is Communication: How to Design Intuitive, User Centered Interface by Focusing on Effective Communication. Elsevier, 2013.