[Design] how to write personas?

[SteveC]

Makes sense, as I mention in reply to matt I didn't realise we're waving 
our hands about the future :-) I thought we were nailing the personas 
for current users.

Personally I think it makes much more sense to start there. We already 
know we have a ~70% drop off at multiple stages in the funnel from 
seeing the site, to signing up, to editing and so on. If we start there, 
we know a whole bunch of things we can ask and work on. We even have 
their email addresses to go survey them. On the other hand, we can all 
wave our hands about the theoretical future personas and all be equally 
correct. :-)

Steve

On 9/16/2011 12:15 PM, Michal Migurski wrote:
> Data is good, of course! Particularly for personas that reflect current users of the site and data.
>
> The trick is that there will be personas for which data simply does not exist, namely all those hypothetical new users whose mapping energy we'd like in the site. I'll write up a sample persona to try to illustrate this, and we can use that to determine whether there's any applicable data that would help flesh it out.
>
> This is the long, messy part. =)
>
> -mike.
>
> On Sep 16, 2011, at 11:12 AM, SteveC wrote:
>
>> Right but you have no data, at all, that it's a valid persona.
>>
>> Would you like to get data, or do you just want to guess?
>>
>> Steve
>>
>>
>> On 9/16/2011 12:08 PM, Michal Migurski wrote:
>>> I thought it was quite appropriate. The key is that it's a believable picture with a name attached, and focused on that person's needs and goals. So maybe something that focuses on Norman's on background and ends with his visit to the site. The design process picks it up from there - why did Norman come to osm.org, what does he want, and how to do we help him along with the other dozen or so hypothetical people we've identified?
>>>
>>> I've asked a few other design firms in the area to share samples of personas they've used.
>>>
>>> -mike.
>>>
>>> On Sep 16, 2011, at 11:02 AM, SteveC wrote:
>>>
>>>> That's a nice example, but we're being too tactical (in jumping in to writing personas without knowing who they are) and it paints a very bright picture. If Norman did so well, then why do we need to change anything?
>>>>
>>>> Step one is to identify the major personas with some data. Perhaps a web form shown to some small % of users or some other survey method. Or you can just ask Muki.
>>>>
>>>> Then you will have 70% drive-by users, 20% curious people and 10% hardcore mappers, something like that. You can further break them down until you have 10-20 personas total. Then you bounce those personas off the real individuals themselves and check how realistic they are.
>>>>
>>>> The key really is to step back and be a bit strategic and get some data on who the users actually are, rather than guessing.
>>>>
>>>> Steve
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 9/16/2011 11:55 AM, Matt Amos wrote:
>>>>> nice work, everyone, on getting started with the personas (personae?
>>>>> antennas? antennae?) [1]. special thanks to gregory - i know it's
>>>>> really hard to keep good notes of these kinds of discussions. i had a
>>>>> go at writing a persona on the plane back from SOTM and this is what i
>>>>> came up with:
>>>>>
>>>>> Norman:
>>>>> Norman is an extreme ironing enthusiast and sees a mention of OSM in
>>>>> his favourite extreme ironing blog. He thinks this is an interesting
>>>>> idea, and follows the link to http://www.osm.org/. He finds
>>>>> well-written and prominent information about the goals and values of
>>>>> the project, and understands that there is a community. Wanting to
>>>>> engage further with the community, he finds information about mappers
>>>>> and events in his local area. Searching further, he is able to find
>>>>> information about other extreme ironing enthusiasts who are already
>>>>> members of the OSM community. Norman decides that this is very
>>>>> exciting, and wants to become part of the community. He is easily able
>>>>> to find the "sign up" process and understands all the steps involved.
>>>>>
>>>>> comparing this to what's on the wiki makes me wonder whether i'm Doing
>>>>> It Wrong - should personas be short, bullet-point-like, or is it more
>>>>> helpful from a design point of view to have (perhaps more of) these
>>>>> prose-y, narrative descriptions?
>>>>>
>>>>> cheers,
>>>>>
>>>>> matt
>>>>>
>>>>> [1] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Design_Mailing_List/OSM.org_Personas
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> design mailing list
>>>>> design at openstreetmap.org
>>>>> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/design
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> design mailing list
>>>> design at openstreetmap.org
>>>> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/design
>>>>
>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>>> michal migurski- mike at stamen.com
>>>                   415.558.1610
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> design mailing list
>>> design at openstreetmap.org
>>> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/design
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> design mailing list
>> design at openstreetmap.org
>> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/design
>>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> michal migurski- mike at stamen.com
>                   415.558.1610
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> design mailing list
> design at openstreetmap.org
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/design