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

[Allan Caeg <allancaeg ubuntu com>]

Awesome. Thanks Kirk!

On Mon, Nov 1, 2010 at 2:36 PM, Kirk Bridger <kbridger shaw ca> wrote:

If we're creating generic Gnome personas, how will they be used?  Are we looking for a tool that helps us publicize and market Gnome?  If they're intended to capture end user behaviour and needs - which Gnome project will be using them?  If we create them and nobody uses them, is that OK?  If someone uses them, we really should make sure they're as useful as possible to those people.  If we make them too generic then they will simply be ignored as being unhelpful and unspecific.

Good questions. Haven't thought of those. To answer these, I think we need feedback from different members of the GNOME community. Let's figure out how we can arrive at a consensus.

We can consider the existing personas that have been drafted/created in various Gnome projects [1, 2, 3, 4] and ask how we can improve upon them (or even use them).  Or look at some existing user observations [5] and ask how they were used, and how to use them more.

I wasn't aware about most of those projects. Perhaps, we should get in touch with the people behind them. They'll probably be interested.

In this case it looks like there is a desire to better understand the general Gnome user population.  I'd suggest trying to focus the personas on a market approach, rather than a software tool approach, as it seems like they'll most likely be used as marketing tools. Or perhaps take this opportunity to collect data on users and present it in a data-rich way, rather than as stereotypical users.

Sorry I didn't understand what you meant here. Can you expound?

If we're able to do a large dump of user data I'd love to look at some ideas I was throwing around back in the early days of Gnome Shell [6] - taking a look at existing Gnome desktops, how they're configured, and how they're modified from the default setup  There's a link on that page to a presentation done at MIX09 by Microsoft [7] on how they gathered data to retool the Windows taskbar for Windows 7.  I think having this kind of data would be greatly valuable for designers and usability analysts alike in trying to figure out how to improve the user's experience.

Sure. This is a great opportunity for us :) 

Although on second thought the panels all go away with the next version of Gnome, so this might require more thought in terms of what exactly we want to gather data on.

Good point. We should make sure that we'll gather data that's relevant to GNOME Shell and not just to the existing GNOME desktop setup.

 

Kirk


[1] Banter personas: http://live.gnome.org/Banter/Design/Personas
[2] Orca personas: http://live.gnome.org/Orca/Specification/Personas
[3] Gnome web personas: http://live.gnome.org/GnomeWeb/WebPersonas
[4] UTS personas: http://live.gnome.org/UTSPersonas
[5] GnomeShell user observations: http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/UserObservationData
[6] Gnome Shell user analysis ideas: http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/UserResearch
[7] Windows 7 user investigation video: http://videos.visitmix.com/MIX09/C26F (Silverlight required of course (boo!))

On 10/30/2010 09:29 PM, Allan Caeg wrote:

I'll add some more things to ask based on what I learned from my profession. 

Let's also ask them what they do when they're not using the computer, what the usual scenarios in their lives are (being at work, playing with their kids, ), types of computers where they use GNOME (netbook, desktop, etc), what distro they use, and why they use GNOME. 

These would help us characterize their mental models and how they experience GNOME.

Comments?

On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 12:19 PM, Allan Caeg <allancaeg ubuntu com> wrote:

Hello,

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 :)

--
Regards,
Allan
http://www.google.com/profiles/allancaeg#about
+63 918 948 2520

--
Regards,
Allan
http://www.google.com/profiles/allancaeg#about
+63 918 948 2520

-- 
Regards,
Allan
http://www.google.com/profiles/allancaeg#about
+63 918 948 2520