UCD with Persona: What if I were you?
This article is part of Proyek Perangkat Lunak (PPL) or Software Engineering Project Course. Any information written here may or may not be true. Please use it wisely and let me know if there is any wrong information in it.
What is User Centered Design?
User-centered design (UCD) is an iterative design process in which designers focus on the users and their needs in each phase of the design process. In UCD, design teams involve users throughout the design process via a variety of research and design techniques, to create highly usable and accessible products for them.
User Centered Design Process
In UCD there are 4 distinct phase that need to known by As designers working in teams, we try to understand the context in which users may use a system. Then, we identify and specify the users’ requirements. A design phase follows, in which the design team develops solutions. The team then proceeds to an evaluation phase.
- Specify the use context & Requirements — collect information about their users’ needs. In this process we only need to analyze so that we can know the goals of the product of the user. In UCD it is better to involved with the users itself, so that we know not only what they need but also the best way we delivered what they need.
- Create unique design solutions — building a solution, from rough concept to finished design. The design build by the requirements that already made. User-centered design arrives at solutions that are desirable, feasible, and viable.
- Evaluate designs — through usability testing with actual users. The test is needed to be able to get feedback on how the current design is. If it needed to be fixed or the design is okay to be used by the users.
- Implementation & Deployment — the process of developing and delivering the product. The final product is launched and then the product evaluated, as consumer needs evolve and change. This will create new requirements and what will bring us to the first process.
If you are involved in work that uses UCD, then you should know what a Persona is.
Persona
What is Persona?
Personas are fictional characters, which you create based upon your research in order to represent the different user types that might use your service, product, site, or brand in a similar way. Creating personas will help you to understand your users’ needs, experiences, behaviours and goals. Creating personas can help you step out of yourself. It can help you to recognise that different people have different needs and expectations, and it can also help you to identify with the user you’re designing for. Personas make the design task at hand less complex, they guide your ideation processes, and they can help you to achieve the goal of creating a good user experience for your target user group.
How to Create Persona?
The first is to do research so that the personas that are created can represent users accurately. The research is only the most important user groups, so that the design is focused on meeting the needs of these user groups as best as possible. After the data is collected, we can create a persona as a summary of the research that has been done.
A persona has 4 key pieces of information:
- Header
- Demographic Profile
- End Goal(s)
- Scenario
Headers are basic user information such as name, photo, and a short quote to make the persona easier to remember. Demographic Profile is a detail based on research that has been done such as personal and professional background and user environment. End Goal is the goal of the user when using an application. Scenario is any case in which the user uses the application.
Personas in Our Project (SIRCLO Learning Lab)
In our PPL project (SIRCLO Learning Lab), we created 4 different personas to illustrate the types of users who will use our application.
- Admin
Admin is a SIRCLO employee whose job is to set roles or access rights to other users. As an admin, I want to have all the permissions on the system. As an admin, I also want to be able to easily manage the permissions of another employee. I as an admin can also do all the things that other roles can do. However, the current system is still ineffective.
2. Contributor
Contributors are users who can manage a learning module, such as creating new modules, adding quizzes, and so on. As a contributor, I want to be able to easily contribute by making learning modules and quizzes to increase the knowledge of Sirclo employees. I also want to be able to easily generate certificates for participants who have successfully completed a module as a token of appreciation. However, now I have to manually create a certificate for each participant who completes the quiz and it’s a hassle if you have to do it one by one.
3. Organizer
Contributors are users who can manage an event, such as creating new events, adding schedules, and others. As an organizer, I want to be able to create events and manage event participants on the system. But for now, this is still not supported by the system and must be done manually.
4. Student
Student is a user who can study in a module or participate in an event. As a student I want to improve my skills and knowledge through the system. Unfortunately on the current system most processes must be done manually so that it can slow down my learning process.
Final Word
Creating personas is easy but also difficult because you have to do some research for each persona. Personas are also quite important to determine who our products will be made and used for. Also with persona system engineers or developers can decide which approaches to take based on user behaviors.
Thanks for reading and don’t forget to be grateful!!
