An Introduction to Personas and How to Create Them

Before embarking on any intranet or website design project, it is important to understand the needs of your users. It is then possible to identify the features and functionality that will make the intranet or website a success, and how the design can support users with different goals and levels of skill.

Calabria, Tina. Step Two (2004). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design>Personas

Key Steps in Creating Your Reader Persona

The Web is about self-service and self-service is about simplicity and convenience. You've got a small screen and every time you add something extra to that screen you make the world more complicated for your reader. You must make very difficult choices if you want your website to work. You can't serve everybody, and if you try to you will serve nobody.

McGovern, Gerry. uiGarden (2007). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Personas

Site Personas and the Dialogue Process

Site Personas are analogous to User Personas. Whereas User Personas represent typical individuals in your target user base, together with goals and motivations, the Site Persona represents the site, embodying its brand and its goals. I often find it helpful to picture my web sites as information flowing both ways between the site and users. The Dialogue Process is a way to optimise your web site interactions by scripting them as conversations between your two types of persona.

Hunt, Ben. Web Design From Scratch (2005). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design>Personas