22-User Modeling

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Farhan Aadil

COMSATS Institute of Information Technology

Lecture 22

User Modeling

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COMSATS University - Human Computer Interaction

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In the Last Lecture

• Qualitative Research Techniques

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In Today’s Lecture …

• Personas

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Why Model?

• Used extensively in design, development and sciences

• Represent complex structures and relationships

• Have to make sense of unstructured, raw data

• Good models

– Emphasize features of structures or relationships they represent – De-emphasize less significant details

• Create models based on patterns in data

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Usage Patterns

Goals Personas

Sets of observed behaviors that categorize

modes of use

Research Modeling

Use ethnographic research techniques to obtain qualitative data:

• user observation • contextual interviews

Specific and general desired outcomes of

using the product Qualitative

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Moving from Research to Modeling

• Need to synthesize patterns

• This leads to the systematic construction of patterns in interaction

– Matching

• Behaviors • Mental models • Goals of users

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Personas

• A precise descriptive model of the user

– What he wishes to accomplish? and why? – A.k.a. user models

• Personas based on motivations and behaviors of real people

• Personas based on behavioral data gathered from actual users through ethnographic interviews

• When to create

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Strengths of Personas

• How do you successfully accommodate a variety of users?

• Do not design for everyone!

• Different needs (e.g., a car for everyone’s needs)

– Person A (Minivan) – Person B (Pickup) – Person C (Sports Car)

• Design for specific types of individuals with specific needs

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Strengths of Personas

• Personas are a tool for

– Understanding user needs

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Strengths of Personas

• Determine what a product should do and how it should behave

• Communicate with stakeholders, developers and designers

– Common language for discussing design decisions

• Build consensus and commitment to design

– Common understanding through narrative structures

• Measure the design’s effectiveness

– Can be tested on personas

• Contribute to other product-related efforts

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Personas and User-Centered Design

• Personas resolve 3 user-centered issues:

– The elastic user

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The Elastic User

• The term user causes imprecision

• During design decisions user becomes ‘elastic’

– Accommodating, computer-literate – Unsophisticated first-time user

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Self-referential Design

• Developers’ mental model, skills, goals, motivations projected onto product design

• Manifested by a ‘cool’ product

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Design Edge Cases

• What could possibly happen, but probably never will

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Personas Based on Research

• Personas synthesized from data

• Primary source of data

– Ethnographic interviews, contextual inquiry

• Supplemental sources of data

– Interviews with users outside their use context

– Information about users supplied by stakeholders and SMEs – Market research data (focus groups, surveys)

– Market segmentation models – Data from literature reviews

• Every detail in personas should be traceable

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Personas Represented as Individuals

• Personas are user models represented as specific, individual humans

– Represented as specific individuals – Not actual people, but synthesized

• Engage empathy of development team towards human target of design

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Personas Represent Classes of Users in Context

• Personas identify usage patterns

– Usage patterns are behavior patterns regarding the use of a particular product

• Patterns along with work/life-related roles define personas as user

archetypes (archetype: an original model or pattern of which all things of the same type are representations or copies)

• Personas a.k.a. composite user archetypes

– Composites assembled by clustering related usage patterns across individuals

• Personas and reuse

– Personas context-specific

• Cannot be reused across products

• Archetypes vs. stereotypes

– Stereotypes antithesis of personas

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Personas Explore Ranges of Behavior

• Personas do not establish an average user

– Identifies different kinds of behavior in form of ranges

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Personas have Motivations

• Humans have emotions

• Personas capture motivations in the form of goals

– Identify usage patterns

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Personas vs. User Roles

• A.k.a. role models

• User roles and user profiles

– both describe relationship of users to products

• User roles are

– an abstraction

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Problems with User Roles

• More difficult to identify relationships in the abstract

• Focus on tasks, neglect goals as organizing principle

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Personas vs. User Profiles

• User profile

– Usually a ‘brief biographical sketch’

• Name

• Demographic data • Fictional paragraph

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Personas vs. Market Segments

• Market segments

– Based on demographics and distribution channels

• Personas

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User Personas vs. Non-user Personas

• Product definition error is to target people who review, purchase or administer the product

• ‘IT Managers’ better served if real end user served

• Cater for non-user personas where necessary

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Goals and Personas

• Personas contain sets of behaviors

• Goals drive behaviors

• Personas without goals

– Communication tool [useful] – Design tool [useless]

• Goals should determine functions of product

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Goals Motivate Usage Patterns

• Goals motivate people to behave in a certain way

• Goals provide answer to

– Why personas use a product?

– How personas desire to use a product?

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Goals Must Be Inferred from Qualitative Data

• Can’t ask a person what his goals are directly

– He can’t articulate them – He won’t be accurate – He won’t be honest

• Goals constructed from:

– Observed behaviors – Answers to questions – Non-verbal cues

– Clues from environment

• Goals expressed succinctly

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Types of Goals …

• User Goals

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User Goals …

• Life goals

• Experience Goals

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Life Goals

• Reflect personal aspirations of user

• Go beyond the context of product being designed

• Examples

– Be the best at what I do

– Get onto the fast track and win that big promotion – Learn all there is to know about this field

– Be a paragon of ethics, modesty and trust

• Not directly related to design of interface

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Experience Goals

• Product-related (general)

• How someone wants to feel when using a product

• People desire to be treated with dignity and respect and supported

• Examples

– Don’t feel stupid

– Don’t make mistakes

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End Goals

• Product-related (specific)

• Expectation’s of the tangible outcomes of using a product

• Examples

– Find the best price

– Finalize the press release – Process the customer’s order

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Combining End Goals and Experience Goals

• End goals have more appeal to

– Business people – Programmers

• Most products satisfy end goals and not the experience goals

• Satisfying only end goals  users not happy

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Non-User Goals

• Must be considered, but not at expense of user goals

• Types …

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Customer Goals

• Consumer products

– Concerned about happiness and safety (parents, relatives, friends)

• Enterprise products

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Corporate Goals

• Businesses and organizations have goals for product

• Enable designers to remain focused

• Examples

– Increase profit

– Increase market share – Defeat the competition

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Technical Goals

• Programmer’s goals

• Ease task of software creation

• Often take precedence over user’s goals

• Examples

– Save memory – Run in a browser

– Safeguard data integrity

– Increase program execution efficiency – Use “cool” technology or features

– Maintain consistency across platforms

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Successful Products Meet User Goals First

• Good products

– Serve a purpose in a context for people – Key tool in designing is personas

– Personas are specific people working towards specific purposes (goals)

• Goals of real people using product are always more important than:

– A corporation – IT manager

• Users will try to meet business goals

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Meeting user goals

• Successful products meet user goals • Don’t make me (user) think

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A user’s most important goal is always to retain his

human dignity

(Don’t make the user feel stupid)

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Constructing Personas

• Personas derived from patterns observed during interviews and

observations

• Well-developed personas include information about

– Goals – Attitudes

– Work or activity flow – Typical workday – Use environment – Skills and skill levels

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Process for Constructing Personas …

1. Revisit the persona hypothesis.

2. Map interview subjects to behavioral variables.

3. Identify significant behavior patterns.

4. Synthesize characteristics and relevant goals.

5. Check for completeness.

6. Develop narratives.

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Revisit the persona hypothesis

• Compare patterns in data with assumptions in persona hypothesis

• List behavioral variables

• Behavioral variables in enterprise applications related to job roles

– 15 to 30 behavioral variables per role

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Map interview subjects to behavioral variables

• Map each interviewee against each applicable variable range

• Place interviewee on a range according to a scale

• Clusters indicate behavior patterns

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Identify significant behavior patterns

• Note clusters of subjects across multiple ranges

• Set of interviewees that cluster in 6-8 variables possibly represent a persona based on pattern

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Synthesize relevant characteristics and relevant goals

• Synthesize details from data

• List characteristics of behavior in brief bullet points

• Add little description of personalities

• Only first and last names of persona should be fictional

• Add some demographic info

– E.g., age, location, income

• From this point on, refer to persona by assigned name

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Check for completeness

• Check persona characteristics and goals for any gaps

• Eliminate redundancies

– E.g., 2 personas only varying in location

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Constructing Personas

• Well-developed personas include information about

– Goals – Attitudes

– Work or activity flow – Typical workday – Use environment – Skills and skill levels

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Develop narratives

• Introduce third person narrative to convey persona’s attitudes, needs and problems

• Persona narrative < 1-2 pages

• Narrative

– Introduces persona in terms of job or lifestyle

– Sketches a day in his life, including interests and concerns related to product

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Designate persona types

• Each interface designed for single, primary persona

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Persona types

• Primary

– Primary target for design of interface

• Secondary

– Secondary personas per interface: 0 to 2

• Supplemental

• Customer

• Served

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Process for Constructing Personas

1. Revisit the persona hypothesis.

2. Map interview subjects to behavioral variables.

3. Identify significant behavior patterns.

4. Synthesize characteristics and relevant goals.

5. Check for completeness.

6. Develop narratives.