Re: [Usability] Creating Personas to Enhance GNOME's UX

[Brian Cameron <brian cameron oracle com>]

Most GNOME distros tend to target particular kinds of users, and this
type of user can vary from distro to distro.  These types of users may
not closely map to the most obvious types of desktop users.

For example, at Oracle, there is a lot of focus on multi-user server and
thin-client desktop users.  These are very different than the
single-user desktop/laptop users that many people think of as being the
representative desktop user.  I suspect other distros also have their
own niche desktop markets.

If we are in the process of creating personas, does it make sense to
work with the GNOME distros to develop personas that map to their
real life use cases?  Or are we planning to create personas that have
are more theoretical, or which represent use-cases where GNOME would
like to become more competitive in the future?

I am not sure which is the better approach or if the best approach is
a combination of these approaches.  However, I do think personas would
be more likely to be used if they are something that is useful to the
various GNOME distributions as well to the GNOME community in general.
So some effort to reach out to GNOME distros and to get an
understanding of their desktop users could be an important part of
developing a useful set of personas.

Brian


On 11/ 1/10 09:15 AM, Allan Day wrote:
> Hey Allan,
>
> > Defining personas is very important for User-Centered Design. In fact,
> > it should be one of the first activities needed to build a system with
> > good UX, based on JJG's Elements of User Experience. We need to know
> > who we're designing for before we design, right?
> >
> >
> > There's an ongoing effort for this, but it's not gaining much
> > traction. Fortunately, GNOME.Asia is interested in helping out by
> > doing research in Asia. I hope you can help us do research in other
> > areas. We also found this GNOME Marketing User Survey effort. We can
> > build on this existing work if it's fit.
> >
> >
> > Let's start by surveying GNOME users about their demographics,
> > computing habits, what they use GNOME for, and how much they use
> > GNOME. Would that do? If so, let's draft the questionnaire :)
>
> Thanks for taking this up! I'm sure that a set of personas would be
> beneficial. Also, I like the idea of using research to inform the
> creation of personas. Purely fictional accounts lack the complexity and
> richness of those which incorporate research results. They are also far
> less convincing.
>
> I see that this message has already had some responses. I'm afraid that
> I don't have time to go through all that right now, but I do want to
> give a few initial reactions.
>
> My view is that the usability project should focus on personas as a way
> to inform GNOME UX design. (They could maybe even become a part of the
> HIG.) Our first step should be to decide how to make a set of personas
> that are effective in that context. Then we can decide whether we can
> collaborate with marketing and what kinds of research strategies will be
> most appropriate.
>
> That said, let me jump the gun a little and say that I'm unsure that a
> survey is the best research approach here. In my understanding, the
> purpose of this research would be to add richness and validity to our
> personas. On the validity front, our aim should be to be able to claim
> that 'people like this really exist and we want GNOME to be well-suited
> to their needs'. This needn't require that our personas are statistical
> representative of the GNOME target audience (something which is beyond
> our practical abilities anyway).
>
> If we want to add richness to our personas, qualitative interviews or
> even ethnography might be more appropriate. They are better suited to
> producing statements like 'Mary is a busy mother. She really hates
> computers and wishes she could spend her time eating cheese instead of
> having to use one.' Interviews are more likely give you nice quotes to
> use. Observations give you a better sense of the contexts in which
> computers are used.
>
> But anyway, let's decide what work we want these personas to do and go
> from there. I've moved the existing persona material to the GNOME wiki
> [1]. It would be great to develop that page.
>
> Thanks again,
>
> Allan
>
> [1] http://live.gnome.org/UsabilityProject/Personas/
>
> _______________________________________________
> usability mailing list
> usability gnome org
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/usability