Re: [Usability] Gnome Shell update and personas - focus or distraction?

[Calum Benson <Calum Benson Sun COM>]

On 12 Nov 2008, at 14:25, Allan Day wrote:
> I'm not familiar with the development of personas... are they supposed
> to be representative of some kind of section of users?


Personas are archetypes that don't necessarily map directly on to any  
one 'real' user.  But the union of the personas you use on any one  
project should, hopefully, be representative of that project's target  
audience.

I'd recommend reading the blog entries at cooper.com about persona  
development:
<http://www.cooper.com/journal/personas/>

And here are a couple of persona-related podcasts I've listened to  
recently, that were quite informative:
<http://www.uxpod.com/index.php?post_id=160220>
<http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2007/11/21/usability-tools-podcast-robust-personas/ 
>

--
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson sun com            GNOME Desktop Team
http://blogs.sun.com/calum             +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems