WordCamp SF 2014 talk on the foundational principles of personas in design and development and a simple way to setup a WordPress site to support their diffusion.

1. DESIGN
WITH
PERSONAS
A LEAN
APPROACH
Davide ‘Folletto’ Casali

2. NIGHT.EU
UX Redirector Advisor

3. @Folletto

4. THE PRODUCT/USER
DISCONNECTION

5. The product shadow
DISCONNECTION 1

6. A business at its core is a
person helping another person.

7. To make that help scale
we added layers: software.

8. That same software casts
a shadow hiding the users.

9. Slowly, naturally, we consider
the software as the end goal.

10. Design
for Functions
Design
for Humans

11. The elastic user
DISCONNECTION 2

12. user

13. user user

14. user user
user

15. Implicit
users
Explicit
users

16. “
”Alan Cooper
The best way to successfully accommodate
a variety of users is to design for specific
types of individuals with specific needs.

17. 1
How
do we keep
the user in focus?
2
How
do we keep
the team aligned?

18. THE PERSONAS
PERSPECTIVE

19. “
”
If I’d asked people what they wanted,
they’d have asked for a faster horse.
Attributed to
Henry Ford

20. ALSO REFERRED AS:
The “I have no clue” quote

21. why?

22. faster horse
?
why
+
INTERNET
DELIVERIES
AIRPLANES
NEWSPAPERS
LUNA PARKS
=
ETC…

23. Personas

24. “
”Alan Cooper
Personas provide us with a precise way of
thinking and communicating about how
users behave, how they think, what they
wish to accomplish, and why.

25. Market
Segment Personas

26. Behaviour Goal Why

27. THE EXTENDED JOURNEY
THE CONTEXT BEYOND YOUR SERVICE
Your Service
Journey

29. Personas are
not a deliverable
(but one of the steps is a deliverable)

30. Consider personas
as data synthesis
(but yeah, personas are models)

31. Research
Keep
Researching
Personas Use

32. DATA
COLLECTION
DATA
CLUSTERING
PERSONAS
SHAPING
PERSONAS
WEIGHTS

33. But… they aren’t real!

35. PERSONAS
DAY TO DAY

36. USE PERSONAS TO
Design

37. USE PERSONAS TO
Reference Data

38. USE PERSONAS TO
Prioritize & Plan

39. USE PERSONAS TO
Do Ticket Triage

40. THE WORDPRESS.COM
CASE STUDY

41. R1 SPRINT
4 weeks activity
Plan
Interviews
Surveys
Data Review
Synthesis
Personas

42. TOOLS USED
Polldaddy
Google Docs
+ your internal collaboration tools

43. interviews
survey
new data
data since 2011

48. Custom Shortcode Plugin
[persona Santiago]

49. MAKE YOUR OWN
PERSONAS SITE

50. POSTS CATEGORIES
Atomized
data points
Matching
the personas
PAGES
One for
each persona

51. POSTS
Atomized
data points

52. CATEGORIES
Matching
the personas
=
Deborah Deborah
PERSONA CATEGORY

53. PAGES
One for
each persona
Photo
Name
Weight %
Introduction paragraph
Goals
Pain points
Quote
Atomized Data

54. Display Posts Shortcode Plugin
[display-posts category="deborah" posts_per_page="-1"]
wordpress.org/plugins/display-posts-shortcode/

55. Atom of Data
Atom of Data
Atom of Data
Atom of Data
Atom of Data
Home
Persona 1 Persona 2 Persona 3

56. With every new research you
atomize and link to persona.

57. Search…

60. “
” Bruno Munari
To complicate is easy, to simplify is hard.
To complicate, just add,
everyone is able to complicate.
Few are able to simplify.

61. Thanks.
@Folletto