Short Talks:
Talk: Understanding
Specialized Section
the Context of Use
Persona Development for Information-rich Domains
Rashmi Sinha
Uzanto Analytics & Design
6486 Benvenue Avenue
Oakland, CA 94618
rashmi@rashmisinha.com
ABSTRACT
Designing information architecture for complex websites
requires understanding user information needs and mental
models in that domain. Personas, or user archetypes,
created for such domains should also reflect types of
information needs, and usage of information set. We have
created a statistical technique to identify important
underlying groupings of information needs. In a preliminary
study, we show how designers can use this information in
conjunction with data from interviews and observations to
generate and refine personas.
Keywords
Personas, information architecture, design, user profiles
INTRODUCTION
Personas, or user archetypes, an increasingly popular
design technique, are used to personify important user
characteristics for product design and marketing. User
profiles have a long history in marketing (Moore 1991),
while Cooper (1999) heralded the use of personas in product
design. Personas help define the product by replacing the
abstract, elastic user with the vibrant presence of a specific
user who becomes a part of the design process. Cooper
suggests that personas should be loosely based on
interviews and observation, with little emphasis on
identifying representative users. In contrast, Grudin & Pruitt
(2002) think that finding representative users is key, and the
persona creation process should involve both quantitative
and qualitative information, including market segmentation
studies, field studies, focus groups etc.
Related Research
Market Segmentation: The goal of market segmentation is
to produce the maximum appeal to target users, while the
goal of product design is to develop a product that best
meets the needs and goals of users. Market segmentation
often relies on demographic information to classify users. In
contrast, our goal is to find common types of information
needs, guiding our choice of method and statistics.
Copyright is held by the author/owner(s).
CHI 2003, April 5–10, 2003, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA.
Copyright is held by the author/owner(s).
CHI
ACM2003, April 5-10, 2003, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA.
1-58113-630-7/03/0004.
ACM 1-58113-637-4/03/0004
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CHI 2003: NEW HORIZONS
Study of Individual Differences: Cognitive psychology is
characterized by usage of experimental techniques, and the
study of average behavior, while the study of individual
differences is characterized by a correlational approach, and
multivariate statistics. Dillon & Watson (1996) point out
that HCI has been influenced by experimental psychology
but less by individual differences psychology that offers
many lessons for understanding users, including the factor-
analytic techniques used in the present study.
Personas in Information-rich domains
Understanding user information needs and mental models is
important for design in information-rich domains.
Information architects use card-sorting and other methods
to understand user mental models for better design. We
propose that personas for such domains should be similarly
informed by user information needs. The cast of personas
chosen should reflect the types of information needs.
Goals of Study
Current persona development processes emphasize
precision (building detailed descriptions), but not accuracy
(identifying representative users). The designer makes a
subjective judgment regarding what user archetypes to
focus on, a judgment that might be difficult for
inexperienced designers. Even for experienced designers,
personas based on the same user research might vary
widely, because there is no tight coupling between user
research and persona development. Finally, persona
development relies mostly on interviews and observation,
techniques that are useful for gaining deeper insight into a
few users, but are not economical for gaining a broader
understanding of target user groups. Our goal is to create a
tighter coupling between user research and persona
development by using quantitative methods to identify
types of information needs
METHOD
Participants and Procedure
The persona development exercise was undertaken for an
online Bay Area restaurant finder. The project goal was to
allow users to find a restaurant to match their tastes and the
occasion. The first step was a preliminary exploration of the
information domain. We identified 32 dimensions of the
restaurant experience by surveying other restaurant finders,
and phone interviews with two people.
Short Talks:
Talk: Understanding
Specialized Section
the Context of Use
63 respondents filled out a questionnaire about the
restaurant experience, including rating 32 dimensions, e.g.,
"Good wine selection”, “Is child friendly” and "Good for
quiet conversation", on a five point Likert scale (1=not
important; 5=very important). Mean ratings suggested what
dimensions of the experience were more important (food
quality, good service), than others (valet parking, decor),
but did not provide insight into individual differences.
Identifying the underlying factors
In order to explore individual differences, we used Principal
Components Analysis (PCA), an exploratory data analysis
technique that can reduce the dimensionality of large
datasets, by identifying important underlying factors.
Bartlett’s test of spherecity showed that the dimensions
were correlated (so PCA was appropriate) [x2 = 804.03,
p<.01]. The results (a five-component solution) accounted
for 53% of the variance. Equamax rotation was used to
divide variance equally between the five components.
Table 1 shows the factor loadings for three components. A
component can be regarded as an independent cluster of
needs. Every respondent also has a score for each
component allowing examination of differences between
people high on different needs.
Table 1: Factor Loadings for 3 factors
Factor 1 (10% of variance): Romantic atmosphere, Trendy,
Décor, Wine-Selection, Takes reservation, Special meal options,
e.g., vegetarian, Well-stocked bar.
Factor 2 (10% of variance): Buffet style, Good for groups, No
rush in service, Child-friendly, Portion size, Meal options:
children’s menu.
Factor 3 (13% of variance): Well-stocked bar, Locations, Good
for people-watching, Credit card accepted, Price, Outdoor
seating, Wine Selection
Creating the Personas
Next we gave all this information (the design task, factor
loadings for five components, questionnaire, means etc.) to
two information architects - who had previously created and
used personas in the course of design work. A brief
explanation of factor loadings was provided. The
information architects were otherwise left free to use the
information as they saw fit.
The information architects reported that their main focus
was the factor loadings, which helped understand primary
and secondary motivation of the persona, and were used as
the core of the personas. But they did not always use all the
factor loadings for a particular persona, using information
that helped formed a coherent picture of a user archetype.
Other information such as spending habits, frequency, age,
helped flesh out demographic characteristics of a persona.
Overall, the information architects felt they had enough
information to start with persona development, but needed
to do more user research to finish the process.
They created four personas from the five factors, reporting
that two factors were not sufficiently different to be distinct
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CHI 2003: NEW HORIZONS
personas . Table 2 shows 3 resultant personas. Next, we plan
to verify and refine the personas by conducting interviews,
targeting users that could be represented by each of the
personas. Computing component scores (from PCA
analysis) for questionnaire will allow us to identify which
persona a particular respondent best represents.
Table 2: Personas from Factor Loadings in Table 1
Romantic, relaxed dining experience… Adam
(42), a Sales Professional in the Bay Area. He dates
frequently and is always on the lookout for a great
place to take a date to. A satisfying dining experience
(good view, service, wine selection), is more
important than price. (based on Factor 1)
Buffet-style dining with kids in tow... Susan (32)
has two young children, and regrets not going out
more often. She likes child-friendly restaurants (menu,
seating arrangements & atmosphere), and buffet-
style service, and avoids trendy restaurants that
cater to a young crowd. (Based on Factor 2)
Meet for drinks, eat some food too... Lin just got
out of school and is on her first job. She goes out a
few nights a week. Along with friends, she loves to try
out new & trendy restaurants. They like places with
outdoor seating. (based on Factor 3)
CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK
The information architects were able to successfully create
personas from the components identified by PCA analysis .
The personas can now be verified, refined and enriched by
conducting targeted interviews and observation. The
proposed technique enhances the accuracy of the persona
creation, while working in a complementary way with other
qualitative methods. Although the technique uses
specialized statistical methods, the design team retains
ownership of the persona creation process, increasing the
chances of the resultant personas being convincing
(Blomquist & Arvola, 02).
This is the first effort to develop a technique that provides
for a direct link from user research and personas. We are
also experimenting with other types of data collection and
statistical analysis. Currently, we are building a software
tool to automate the analysis for persona creation. The tool
will allow designers to run the analysis themselves.
REFERENCES
1. Blomquist, A & Arvola, M (2002). Personas in Action:
Ethnography in an Interaction Design Team. NordiCHI.
2. Cooper, A (1999). The inmates are running the asylum.
Macmillan.
3. Dillon, A & Watson, C (1996). User Analysis in HCI:
historical lessons from individual differences research.
International Journal of Human Computer Studies, 45.
4. Grudin, J & Pruitt, J (2002). Personas, participatory
design and product development. PDC 2002.
5. Moore, A. G. (1991). Crossing the chasm. Harper Collins
Publishers, New York.