About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design, Third Edition
Chapter 5 - Modeling Users: Personas and Goals
How should our design decisions be informed? This chapter discussed the purpose of user model personas in models, which provide explanations and reasoning on how and why users behave in certain ways. Although they are not real people, personas are synthesis of research information that reflect information of real people in society.
I quickly jumped to the conclusion that personas would be better to be broad so that they support a wider group of audience. However, it was mentioned that the narrower, the better. It should be narrowed down to address a specific group of people to answer to their needs more accurately. Defining a niche and catering to those needs would result in a clearer outcome for the design model.
I also liked how it mentioned that personas should be typical, but not stereotypes. I think there is a fine line between something typical and stereotypical. Both may be believable, but the latter jumps to quick conclusions and misleading.
Moreover, in comparison to the flaws in Holtzblatt and Beyer’s model, persona models address those by providing insight into the underlying reasoning and context. Although people end up with the same outcome, their driving force or motivation may greatly differ and therefore is key to understand the rationale behind the decisions.
Moving forward with our projects in class, I think it’s integral to keep in mind to identify different user groups and gather common trends and understand what the stimulus is behind the decisions.
