Re: FLOSS Usability Testing Suite - persona work and status

Hi Allan,

In my mind, the steps steps are:

1 - finish the personas
2 - begin describing the tasks we want to support in the software (use 
cases, scenarios, whatever)
3 - start throwing around more mockups
4 - find some developers interested (if we don't have them already)

Beyond that, I think the designer/developer relationship will dictate 
the next steps.   Maybe we can hook into Mairin's Design Hub to see if 
we have a prototype they want us to play around with?

These don't need to happen in this order, nor serially.

Those are my thoughts,

Kirk




Allan Caeg wrote:
>
> Thanks a lot for the work, Kirk.
>
> I haven't read the whole message yet because I'm mobile, but i'll see 
> what I can contribute to the discussion when I already have time.
>
> What do you think should be our next step? let's pursue this. I want 
> it to materialize.
>
> Regards,
> Allan
>
>> On Mar 13, 2010 12:44 PM, "Kirk Bridger" <[email protected] 
>> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>>
>> Thanks for the thoughtful reply Charline!  You've given me a lot of 
>> ideas and feedback - see below for some specific thoughts.
>>
>>
>>
>> >
>> > What will these personas be used for?  Right now, you have defined 
>> them by their professions/a...
>>
>> I'm not sure what will be the most useful - I was hoping to get some 
>> feedback from the people who would be using them along those lines. 
>>  I did not start them off as based on professions/activities.  I 
>> don't intend to leave them that way either ... at this point the 
>> largest differentiator I saw that made sense to use was the frequency 
>> of use of the software.  So Henri will be the casual user while we 
>> have other users who use it all the time, and thus need more advanced 
>> features.  This would be an interesting topic to discuss - can I 
>> create skeletons of the others first though, so my initial work is a 
>> little more fully represented?
>>
>> I'm open to changing these - however I'd like to hear from the people 
>> who will use them what they need too.  It sounds like you're familiar 
>> with personas so perhaps you also have encountered situations as I 
>> have where personas are created and then never used because they're 
>> not really capturing the right info in the right way?  I want to 
>> avoid that here.
>>
>>
>>
>> > I am asking this, because in design, we tend to create our personas 
>> on the basis of differences ...
>>
>> Agreed.  As I mentioned above, I'm planning on basing them on their 
>> behaviours.
>>
>>
>>
>> >
>> > By the way, what data are you using to create these personas?
>> >
>>
>> Some months ago I create an initial survey to try to collect data 
>> from usability professionals.  The survey was sent out to this list, 
>> KDE's usability list, a linkedIn list, Ayatana's list, VanUE list, 
>> and to a few professional usability testers I know.
>>
>> There were only 26 responses.
>>
>> If these turn out too narrowly focused I am very open to putting 
>> together a different survey.  The lack of data is certainly 
>> concerning, but it is better than nothing.  I'd like to follow this 
>> data set a little further though.  As I mentioned I'm going to put 
>> the raw data up on the wiki once I finish analyzing it.
>>
>>
>>
>> > Description of Henri:
>> > Henri is quite interesting but still feels a bit underdeveloped. 
>>  What m...
>>
>> Interesting ideas - give me some time to try to incorporate them. 
>>  I'm hesitant to focus on Henri's future though as other personas to 
>> be created will embody the more professional or more frequent user. 
>>  But you're right, he is under-developed - I've posted him to 
>> stimulate some feedback but also to re-energize the project :)
>>
>>
>>
>> > Don't forget the context surrounding Henri.  What elements of his 
>> context would impact his use o...
>>
>> I'd want to ensure that there is value in adding these details.  I 
>> see value in two ways:
>> 1 - adds to the knowledge surrounding needs for functionality and 
>> use/tasks
>> 2 - adds to the realism/relatable-ness of Henri.
>>
>> Let me refine him some more and see where we sit - I want to keep 
>> these to a single page too, so perhaps a one-pager is good to start 
>> and a more detailed personas could be created if developers/designers 
>> need more detail.
>>
>>
>>
>> > Another thing I would suggest:  don't mix needs with solutions.  I 
>> feel that it is very importan...
>>
>> The personas I've created before suffered from too little detail for 
>> the solution designers.  They found them less useful because it 
>> wasn't clear what solutions existed based on the personas.  They 
>> wanted some bounds to work with (and break as they saw fit). I wrote 
>> these ones a lot more "crunchy" on solution detail to gauge the 
>> developer/designer waters.  I agree that creating design solutions at 
>> this point is premature, but presenting some ideas for 
>> discussion/revision/brainstorming is a good idea.  That was the 
>> intention here.  Again it goes to the needs of the consumers, which I 
>> haven't really heard yet.  I can back it off if that's the approach 
>> the team wants to take.
>>
>>
>>
>> > Finally, I would keep the persona clean of any technology 
>> discussion or illustration because the...
>>
>> Could you elaborate on what you mean here?  I'm not sure what you 
>> mean by illustration, for example.  Are you referring to the brief 
>> scenarios?
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks again Charline, and please if anyone else has any feedback or 
>> points they'd like to discuss - chime in!  The point of posting this 
>> was to generate discussion and further exploration.
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Kirk
>>
>>
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>>

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