Using video in personas

Abstract

Involving user in the development process is becoming inevitable for companies to stay competitive and innovative. Technology is no longer the main factor to furfill the customers needs. Especially in product innovation the integration of the needs and desires of customers are fundamental (Veryzer R. W., 2003). User-centered design is an approach to designing products, systems or services that put the people who will use the product at the center of the development effort (Buur & Ylirisku, 2007). Their involvement leads to more effective, efficient and safer products and contributed to the acceptance and success of products (Preece, 2002). There are several methods for user centered design within a new product development process. Personas is one of these methods, they were introduced in 1999 by Alan Cooper and are “fictitious, specific, concrete representations of target users” (Pruitt & Adlin, 2006, p. 7). It is a method that describes the actual “user” of the product. This to get a clear and consistent understanding of this user within a company. If everyone has the same understanding of the user, the product is less likely to fail (Cooper, 1999). Exact is a company that is using personas now for several years, but the personas were not really used and failed several times. To overcome this problem the idea of using video to make the personas more emphatic was invented. Exact didn`t have the knowledge and capabilities to execute this idea, so this graduation assignment was initiated together with the TU Delft. This thesis is a research for Exact into the use of video in personas, to make the personas more empathic, engaging and inspiring. The first aim of this thesis was to create and evaluate both types of personas within Exact; static and interactive* personas. The second aim was to create guidelines about the creation of Interactive personas. PERSONA CREATION Two personas were created based on an participatory design research that was held in Exact with IT and management consultants. The static persona is one paper with a photo, quotes, explaination of his working process, hobbies and family life. Photos of his children and employees are also shown. The interactive persona is a website which starts with a short introduction. Then it is possible to go further, there a map is shown of the spots he daily visits. His home, the park, the road and hos office are shown. Each of the spots will lead to one or more movies about this spot. For example the office leads to 6 short movies about his working life. To make both personas comparable, visual are similar and the same subject are dicussed. The difference is mainly found in the details and the eleboration about the subjects. PERSONA EVALUATION The comparison of both personas was done between groups. One group only saw the static persona, the other one only the interactive persona. Both groups received a similar quesionairre about the persona they saw. Several statements had to be valued and several mechanisms had to be ranked. The questionairres were compared and analyzed in SPSS. The outcomes showed that there was no significant difference in means between empathy, engagement and inspiration of the two personas. GUIDELINES Several guidelines were made based on my own creation process of the interactive persona and interesting insights from literature and experts in video methods. The following eight guidelines were developed for the creation of interactive personas: Involve the company during the whole process Presentation of the personas should depend on the current communication channels within the company. Be aware of the impact that video can have for a participant Try to supply information about the study to the participant Explain the procedure of the shooting of the video Let the participant be in control of what can be recorded Try to be open to any situation Do not try to make a to detailed script; be open to the situation the participant creates Record in the natural environment of the participant Try to focus on showing the everyday details and the context of the participant. When recording, try to focus on where the attention moves of the participant. People surrounding the participant should also be aware of the situation. Be aware of your appearance Avoid wearing obvious clothes and noisy objects; like bangles or heels. Try to make the video as natural as possible Choose a participant that can tell the story Avoid special effects and music Let the participant tell the story Stay close to the original material Show different types of information Try to combine different types of information; video, audio, pictures and text. Use these different types of information to show the different layers of information; raw data, interpretations and conclusions. Use other communication means to support the video Use posters, cups, placemats or other means to promote the persona. The goals is to trigger people to see the persona; make them curious. The guidelines are used in the toolkit for making interactive personas. This toolkit consists of card in different color and sizes, which have a similar system as a swatch book. The four colors each represent a different phase is the creation process. The toolkit shows methods, guidelines and equipement that can be used in the creation of the persona.