Milestone Three - Personas

February 14, 2007

Methodology:

To better understand our users we developed four personas. They are aggregate characters that represent the major groups of users that will interact with our application. By defining who our users are, what makes them tick, how they interact with technology, and why they visit the Hands-on museum, we can better meet their needs in our design.

In order to breath life into our users we employed three methodologies:

Interviews and Observations:
These personas reflect another round of observations at the museum and individual interviews with a teacher, three parents, four museum administrators and three children ages 7-13.

Affinity Diagram:
Themes and observations captured in the affinity diagram are translated into our personas attributes and goals. Each persona embodies different key discoveries and illustrates the potential user interactions that the diagram uncovered.

Collage:
Mapping visual images to each persona enabled their characters to become multi-dimensional. Through the exercise of defining a visual landscape that the persona inhabited, the richness of their internal desires to learn, methods of interaction, and life goals emerged.

View photo gallery to see Affinity Diagramming and Collaging

Results

The four user groups represented by the personas are:

• Elementary School Child: Christopher Silvins
• Elementary School Teacher: Jane Smith
• Parent: Xue Kan
• Grandparent: Robert Engling