The 8 Rules of Personas

Summary

Ø     Key Rule of Personas – Design for just one person.

Ø     Second Rule of Personas – Be Specific

Ø     Third Rule of Personas – It is more important to be precise than to be absolutely accurate

Ø     Fourth Rule of Personas – Design is defined at the center

Ø     Fifth Rule of Personas – Cast of characters becomes the design taxonomy

Ø     Sixth Rule of Personas – User Persona, Not Buyer Persona

Ø     Seventh Rule of Personas – Identify Primary Persona(s)

Ø     Eighth Rule of Personas – Treat the People with Respect

Rules with Cooper's Commentary

Ø     Personas

v    Key idea – “Develop a precise description of our user and what he wishes to accomplish.  The sophistication comes from how we determine and use that precise description.”

v    Personas = hypothetical archetypes of actual users

§        Are defined by their goals

§        Determined by a process of successive refinement

Ø     Key Rule of Personas – Design for just one person.

v    The convertible pickuptruckminisportscarvan

v    Dodge Ram – 80% vs. 20%

v    100% of users 50% happy vs. 50% 100% happy

v    Roll-aboard suitcase

v    Sticky notes

Ø     Lessons in torture – the Elastic User

v    Must bend & stretch to adapt to needs of software

v    “Look how great his suit fits!”

v    Design software to stretch & bend

Ø     Second Rule of Personas – Be Specific

v    Result – escape from error of user elasticity

v    Give your personas names

v    Don’t play against the type

Ø     Third Rule of Personas – It is more important to be precise than to be absolutely accurate

Ø     Fourth Rule of Personas – Design is defined at the center

v    Do not live and die by edge cases

v    Rule out averages

§        No family has 2.3 children

§        Power of personas is precision and specificity

§        Do not reuse personas

Ø     Fifth Rule of Personas – Cast of characters becomes the design taxonomy

v    End features debates

v    Explains design decisions

v    Watershed moment – seeing real people

v    Do not fall back into “userspeak”

Ø     Sixth Rule of Personas – User Persona, Not Buyer Persona

v    Do not design for software reviewer

v    Do not design for IT manager

v    Do not pander to gatekeepers of technology

Ø     Seventh Rule of Personas – Identify Primary Persona(s)

v    Cast of characters might number 3-12

v    But no more than 3 primary – otherwise trying to accomplish too much with one product

v    If need be, include those to be excluded

v    Cast of characters might include persons for whom the product is not intended

Ø     Eighth Rule of Personas – Treat the People with Respect

v    Software is designed to serve

v    You know you are serving when you are treated like a servant

v    The anathema of uninformed consent – making a choice, the scope and consequences of which are not known

v    Po Bronson: “Engineers will keep fixing what is not broken until it is broken.”

v    Avoid “painting the corpse” – all the trappings of a great interface without the substance