[Sigia-l] combining personas and scenarios

[Adam Korman]

PeterV wrote...
: I tend to do something like this:
: - have a few personas (describing goals)
: - have a number of scenarios (describing tasks)
: - indicate with each persona which scenarios are relevant, 
: and any comments on the scenario specific to this persona. 

At Cooper we use personas to create scenarios -- starting with "day in the
life" scenarios, then down through successive levels of detail. Because
personas drive the process of scenario creation (which in turn drives
design), scenarios generally don't exist independent from a specific
persona.

That said, there is often a level of very detailed design (describing edge
cases that must be handled, alternate paths, etc.) where personas don't
really drive each and every task-level detail, but they are often still
useful for illustrative purpose. It's much nicer (if for no other reason
than keeping pronouns straight!) to refer to "George" instead of "the user."

There's also a distinction between scenarios used to create the design and
scenarios used to communicate the design ... we generally don't have the
time to catalog all the scenarios used to create the design (and then
analyze the interrelationships of the task-level behavior of various
personas), and in many cases this may not be useful. Instead, we usually
focus on emblematic scenarios that communicate the major elements of the
design, then use callouts and other descriptions to articulate the details.
Of course there's a gray and movable line between what you call a scenario
and what's just a simple description of how the interface/interaction
looks/behaves.

PeterV wrote...
: - personas presented without explicit reference to scenarios

We'll do this too, create and present fairly detailed persona descriptions
that we can use as a consensus tool with our clients. "Okay, do we all agree
who we're designing for?"


Cheers, Adam
========== 
Adam Korman
Senior Design Consultant
Cooper - humanizing technology
adam at cooper.com
650.213.5104


: -----Original [SNIPPED] Message-----
: From: PeterV [mailto:peter at poorbuthappy.com]
: Sent: Monday, May 06, 2002 7:18 AM
: To: sigia-l at asis.org
: Subject: [Sigia-l] combining personas and scenarios
: 
: Hi all,
: I am trying to clarify the use of personas and scenarios, and 
: how they relate. I tend to do something like this:
: - have a few personas (describing goals)
: - have a number of scenarios (describing tasks)
: - indicate with each persona which scenarios are relevant, 
: and any comments on the scenario specific to this persona. 
: 
: I'd love to hear about how people combine personas and 
: scenarios in their practice.