Long Live the User (Persona): Talking with Steve Mulder

More companies are doing user research than ever before, but what is becoming of all the information? Steve Mulder talks about strategies for getting research into shape so real people can actually use it. The key: user personas.

Danzico, Liz and Steve Mulder. Boxes and Arrows (2007). Articles>Interviews>User Centered Design>Personas

Making Personas Work for Your Web Site: An Interview with Steve Mulder

It's important for the people responsible for creating the personas to have active listening skills, empathy, and clear communication skills. Ultimately, what design teams need to do is aggregate all of the qualitative or quantitative data into a clearly communicated story. This means that writing and communication skills are also critical. From the point of view of a more tactical skillset, the design team will get better results if they have experience conducting interviews and writing surveys.

Spool, Jared M. User Interface Engineering (2007). Articles>Interviews>User Centered Design>Personas

Personas and Goal-Directed Design: An Interview with Kim Goodwin

We use personas because they are powerful design, measurement, and communication tools. We use them in design to help us avoid the elastic user problem--where "the user" is a total novice one minute and a technophile the next--as well as self-referential design, because designers are seldom representative of a product's target audience. Personas also help cut through assumptions that certain tasks are necessary; if a task doesn't directly help accomplish a goal, we can try to eliminate it.

Klee, Matthew. User Interface Engineering (2001). Articles>Interviews>User Centered Design>Personas