User Personas are a UX method I have been using for a while now after covering them briefly in first year and in more depth last semester. They are very useful in humanising users, they give our users a name and a face so instead of thinking “I’m designing this for users” you think “I’m designing this for Sarah” it gives humanity to the thinking process. I find personas a useful technique as users seem like quite an abstract thought whereas personas seem a lot more real and they help with empathy.
I always find it useful to have a look at online articles when using a UX method and there are lots on personas, I found this one on digital.gov an American Government site and while it was quite basic and didn’t cover anything new for me, it was interesting to know that an organisation as big as the US government uses personas in their work.
*https://digital.gov/2015/01/09/personas-101/ Last Accessed 20/02/24*
Another article I looked at was from the Interaction Design Foundation and even though it is described as a simple introduction it is quite an in-depth look at personas. I hadn’t considered the different types of personas before assuming there was just one type but this article describes four types: Goal-directed personas, Role-based personas, engaging personas and fictional personas. While strictly speaking my personas will be fictional as I won’t be undertaking any primary user research before creating them, I do intend to look at each persona very carefully and research the type of person they will likely be to achieve the most realistic personas I can.
*https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/personas-why-and-how-you-should-use-them Last Accessed 20/02/24*
I want to create three user personas for this project to take into account the three main user groups I see using my product. These are a charity worker meeting displaced persons on arrival in the UK (for example a Red Cross volunteer/Staff member), a border force officer dealing with displaced persons and a displaced person.
While the charity worker and Border Force officer may share certain characteristics I want to explore the differences that someone who volunteers for a job may have from someone who is directed to do the role and what effect if any this may have on my design.
I always find it useful when creating personas to have one from a different viewpoint, so while my product will be designed for use by someone from the UK they will be using it with the displaced person with them so it is key that I take into consideration their needs as well as part of the design process and by giving them a persona I feel that will ensure I do this.
For my user personas I used Image Creator from Microsoft (https://www.bing.com/images/create) which I believe is powered by Dall-E for my images and username generator for my names. While I have used ChatGPT in the past for personas on this occasion I felt I had done enough desk research to create three personas that would inform my designs.
I have used Figma in the past to create user personas however this time I used Adobe Illustrator as I explored a different visual style for personas. I still believe the information is the key point for personas so I included: