User modeling with personas

ABSTRACT

User demographic and behavior data obtained from real user observation provide valuable information for designers. Yet, such information can be misinterpreted if presented as statistic figures. Personas are fictitious user representations created in order to embody behaviors and motivations that a group of real users might express, representing them during the project development process. This article describes the persona as being an effective tool to the users' descriptive model.

REFERENCES

• 1: Peter Brusilovsky, Adaptive Hypermedia, User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction, v.11 n.1-2, p.87-110, 2001 [doi>10.1023/A:1011143116306]
• 2: Larry L. Constantine , Lucy A. D. Lockwood, Software for use: a practical guide to the models and methods of usage-centered design, ACM Press/Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., New York, NY, 1999
• 3: Alan Cooper, The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity (2nd Edition), Pearson Higher Education, 2004
• 4: Alan Cooper , Robert Reimann , Robert M. Reimann , Hugh Dubberly, About Face 2.0: The Essentials of Interaction Design, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, NY, 2003
• 5: J. P. Djajadiningrat , W. W. Gaver , J. W. Fres, Interaction relabelling and extreme characters: methods for exploring aesthetic interactions, Proceedings of the conference on Designing interactive systems: processes, practices, methods, and techniques, p.66-71, August 17-19, 2000, New York City, New York, United States [doi>10.1145/347642.347664]
• 6: Lucia Filgueiras , Plinio Aquino, Jr. , Rodrigo Sakai , Álvaro Gregório Filho , Carlos Torres , Iara Barbarian, Personas como modelo de usuários de serviços de governo eletrônico, Proceedings of the 2005 Latin American conference on Human-computer interaction, p.319-324, October 23-26, 2005, Cuernavaca, Mexico [doi>10.1145/1111360.1111395]
• 7: Filgueiras, L; Aquino Jr., P; Tokairim, V; Torres, C; Barbarian, I; Usability Evaluation as Quality Assurance of E-Government Services: The e-poupatempo case. IFIP: Building the e-service society: e-commerce, e-business, and e-government. Boston: Kluwer, (2004) pp. 77--87.
• 8: Jesse James Garrett, The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web, New Riders Publishing, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2002
• 9: Goodwin, K. Perfecting Your Personas. Cooper Interaction Design. Cooper, San Francisco, CA, 2004, available from Internet (April, 17, 2005): http://www.cooper.com/newsletters/2001_07/perfecting_your_personas.htm
• 10: Grudin, J. and Pruitt, J. Personas, Participartory Design and Product Development: An Infrastructure for Engagement, Proceedings of the Participartory Design Conference, PDC'02, 2002, pp. 144--161.
• 11: Hourihan, M. Taking the "You" Out of User: My Experience Using Personas. Boxes and Arrows, 2004, available from Internet (February, 02, 2005): http://www.boxesandarrows.com/archives/taking_the_you_out_of_user_my_experience_using_personas.php
• 12: Jung, C. G. Desenvolvimento Da Personalidade / Carl Gustav Jung, 2 ed, Obras completas de C. G. Jung, Petropolis: Vozes, 1983.
• 13: Jakob Nielsen, Usability Engineering, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc., San Francisco, CA, 1993
• 14: John Pruitt , Jonathan Grudin, Personas: practice and theory, Proceedings of the 2003 conference on Designing for user experiences, June 06-07, 2003, San Francisco, California [doi>10.1145/997078.997089]
• 15: Quesenbery, W. Using Personas: Bringing Users Alive, STC Usability SIG Newsletter - Usability Interface. 2004, available from Internet (February, 24, 2005): http://www.stcsig.org/usability/newsletter/0310-personas.html
• 16: Rascão, J. Análise Estratégica - Sistema de Informação para a toma de decisão, Edições Sílabo, Lisboa, 2000.
• 17: Rich, E. User Modeling via stereotypes. Cognitive Science. v. 3, 1979, pp. 329--354.
• 18: Ben Shneiderman, Designing the user interface (2nd ed.): strategies for effective human-computer interaction, Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc., Boston, MA, 1992

INDEX TERMS

Keywords:
personas, user modeling, user profile, user roles