At the heart of design are the stories that give meaning to the work. Andrew Hinton meditates on what stories have taught him about information architecture and the people inhabiting the places he’s helped design.
Special topic: Personas
Andrew Hinton digs into the origins of the persona and reflects on how business uses (or misuses) design documentation.
Personas and the Role of Design Documentation
How it’s less about deliverables, and more about design.
While the imaginary persona is helpful in the design process, a data-backed persona lends even more depth and focus to the development process. Andrea Wiggins reveals some effective ways to back up your personas with data easily available today.
Building a Data-Backed Persona
More companies are doing user research than ever before, but what is becoming of all the information? Steve Mulder talks about strategies for getting research into shape so real people can actually use it. The key: user personas.
Long Live the User (Persona): Talking with Steve Mulder
Method acting can take your personas from the page to the stage. Think beyond traditional practice to give emotional life to your personas.
Bring Your Personas to Life!
Personas and scenarios tell honest stories that are sculpted from diverse and comprehensive sets of data. Parrish Hanna and his Experience Planners demonstrate how to keep it honest throughout the organization.
Customer Storytelling at the Heart of Business Success
Personas ought to be one of the defining techniques in user-focused design, but they’ve unfortunately become more of a check-off item than a useful tool. So how did we get here?
Making Personas More Powerful: Details to Drive Strategic and Tactical Design
Entertainment, education, and collaboration software is often used by two or more people simultaneously. Each of these groups has a different set of needs and expectations, and each can be modeled as a group persona, rather than as individual users.
Extending a Technique: Group Personas
Meg Hourihan, co-founder of Pyra – the company behind Blogger, shares her team’s experience in the discovery of Alan Cooper and the use of personas. Through their practical application, she tells the tale of how a product cycle was turned on its ear as the team discovered they weren’t anything like their users.
Taking the “You” Out of User: My Experience Using Personas
The way you communicate the personas and present your deliverables is key to ensuring consistency of vision. Without that consistency, you’ll spend far too much time arguing with your colleagues about who your users are rather than how to meet their needs.