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What is Persona?

Lesson 2 from: Become a UX Designer

Joy Liu

What is Persona?

Lesson 2 from: Become a UX Designer

Joy Liu

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Lesson Info

2. What is Persona?

A user persona is an effective way for the product team to visualize users and develop products that meet their needs.

Lesson Info

What is Persona?

to come up with users. Sometimes you use something we use a tool called Persona. It persona is not riel. That's very important to know, because it is pretty much of hypothetical archetype representing who actual user maybe is, even though it is not really. It's very realistic, right? If when you're creating these persona profiles, obviously you're not going to say Okay for my typical user, Um, he has wings. He can fly around at night or like he's Batman, right? Like that's not really Where do we find this person? Um, using using a persona, you help the product team visualize the users. So when I'm talking about the product team, I'm talking about perhaps on your team, you have a project manager. You have several designers of visual designers, UX designers. You might have your developers. You might have your content writer and whoever else that comes in and maintain the website or or maybe the marketing teams to. So whoever that comes in and help build and maintain the website, they're ...

part of the product team and I mean a lot of as washing our designers. So we are visual people. When we look at something is very easy for us in our mind to start visualizing what that person is. But its heart is harder for some other people to just get a picture in their mind. So we use persona as a tool to help health, Um, help the other people visualize who those users can be. Um, it also helps keep the product team on the same page. For example, everyone in the room today. So let's say where we started talking about potential user. So we're gonna say this is Robert. Robber is 35 years old. He lives in San Francisco. Hey, he likes sports. Great. Um, Lee, why don't you start? Can you describe Robert for me? Like the way he dresses, how you looks? I think Robert wears jeans. Think he wears vans and maybe a plaid shirt. Um, he goes to Giants games during baseball season. Okay, se what about you? Like when I when I was talking about Robert. Like what? What comes into your mind? Yeah. Robert is a foodie. Enjoys going out to restaurants. He has a vegetarian diet. You just go right? What sort of clothing does he wear? Yeah, he wears hurdy. Probably most of days. He's got jeans. Um, yeah, he's, uh he's an early adopter. He's into technology. Okay, cool. Ronnie, how about you? Do you think I'm not much more to add? Pass that? Maybe he has probably some sort of creative outlet, right? Well, you don't have to add to them, right? So I'm just asking you what I was talking about. Robber like, what sort of image comes into your mind? Not quite hipster, but trying to pretend that he's not. But he still would like to belong to that hipster crowd. So everything that was related to that culture will probably be a participant of right. So is funny, because all three of you kind of touched up on different thing that Robert can be great. And then it's very important when we're building a product, everyone is on the same page. Otherwise, you might be building off building the product using Robert, who's a giant giant fan who wears fans right. He's kind of like street, maybe like urban, stylish, right? And then, while saying he's going off doing the healthy diet vegetarian living thing and then Ronnie is like going off into like a hipster about not so hips or so using a persona. It really helps keeping the team on the same page and say, OK, this is this is the robber we're building for, not your rubber and not your Robert. Um, yes. From online joy from from grasa on grass is saying even though you designed with the user in mind, don't you still want to control what you want the user to do to take a certain action controlling the user? Yes, you've got that is you Did you design with the user in mind? But don't you still want to control what you want the user to do? Yes, yes, I think that is true. To a certain point, however, you have to also think about rubber, right? So let's let's just use Robert as an example. So yes, so we have the user in mind. But it in order to persuade Robert to do something, we have to ask ourselves. If so, let's say we are trying to get Robert to sign up, right? So to do something to sign up for our website. Okay, while we and we needed thing we need again to the mind of Robert So if he's a Giants fan, maybe the copy is different. If Robert is a healthy living living person, right, So maybe, um, maybe this is a wasn't common for them. So maybe this is a website about active lifestyle, right? For Zane's Robert, we might say to sign up, we will give you daily tips on healthy living. Right then the robbers like, Oh, yeah, that's my type. I'm totally going. Going to sign up, right? And then there we get Roberts. Ah, email address. And then if we think robbers more of, like a sports fan, or maybe if sports Oh, no, I'm just like generalizing here. We might say. OK, well, if you sign up today, we might get you. Um, we might give you to dick tickets to like. Giants were like to take two tickets to the AT and T Park for do doing something else. Um so there, even though yes, we are trying to get all the users to do a certain action like their different ways to approach to draw their attention to that action. Yes. Wondering what's wrong with using a real person as a persona? Suppose that you're building a product from a pain point that you found that your friends are having and using them as a person. Ah, versus a hypothetical person. Um, sometimes you might fall into just bias, right? I think it's always good to start from somewhere. That's Realtor. Draw inspiration from this person. However, if your friend is, um hm. However, if your friend, that's that's something. So if your friend go still a park and rice his or her bicycle, like on the weekends raid. If that misses the mark of what the general market wants, then that's a pretty big bias raise. So you don't want to narrow down and have tunnel vision on the product you're building. Usually what I do with Persona is I try to figure out, um, I draw inspiration is from different riel people. And then I come up with this, um, mash up. That's a little bit broader than just one individual, but that's not too broad that we're referring to this persona as Gen X or Gen y right. Then that becomes way too broad. But then I tried Teoh take away edge cases or I try to take away anything that's irrelevant to what we're focusing on. So I'm gonna touch. I'm going to talk a little bit. About what do we focus on persona and what are the supplement that make a persona a realistic towards the end of this segment? But I think, yes, it is. Okay to use your friend as a starting point, but when you finish, you should try to, um, just try Teoh take out anything that may become an edge case in the future. Yeah. So a persona presents several things. What does the user want to do with this product? So maybe, um, with the healthy living Web site, the user is saying while I want to I want to read more. I want to educate myself on healthy living. That's why I'm coming here and using this website. Um, it may be a while. A friend of my is having a pretty bad life, so all right. And then I want to use this as a tool to help my friend. So it's not as I get indirect. Um, What doesn't use I want to do. Maybe Maybe he wants to use his website as a community to talk and share his tips, because maybe he does have a healthy living lifestyle, and then he's learned so much that he wants to educate and help others and grow a community. Um, maybe this guy is a couch potato. So he is really trying to, um, he's really trying to find a virtual coach, to walk him through, um, his rough lifestyle and then bringing up to speed and become a better, healthier person. Secondly, why does Yeah, why do they want to use this product get into their mindset again? To their the reason right, The thing that triggers them on why they're using those. What does the user hope to achieve with this product? So those ones is a little bit harder to answer because this is very goal driven and again thes when you're talking about realistic users, thes can be super personal, super subjective. But I think by using by creating an archetype, you can kind of just you can take a step back in your approach and not be us detailed and but still hit those people. Yeah, so the other one is how does the product fit into the user's life and lifestyle? So this is were talking about the same robbers really important, right? So, like, what kind of life does he have? So, um, for example, if we're talking about persona, that's too broad. If we're talking about Okay, these are, um, baby boomers who are approaching retirement. So we can we have a We have a mindset of who, like what age range the baby people were can be. But a baby boomer who's living in Wyoming can be really different from our boomer, who is living in l. A rate because they have probably have a very different life and lifestyle. So it's very important to kind of to friendship. But, um and then lastly, where does the user have trouble in the current domain? So this is also something that you can talk about. So what are the what are their pain points right now? What are their frustration points right now that we can use and improve upon

Class Materials

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Ratings and Reviews

ZuZu
 

With all due respect... We're 2 hours in and I simply can't watch this any longer. I would NEVER pay money for this course as it is. Joy seems to have a great grasp of the material and I have no doubt that working with small start-ups is a good fit for her. That doesn't mean that she's well-qualified to actually teach this course. Joy will serve both herself and her audience by getting some coaching/guidance in becoming a better speaker. The constant ums, nervous hard swallows, monotonous tone, rambling, frequent pauses while she tries to think of the next thing to say, etc is not only painfully distracting but REALLY detracts from her credibility. And the casual, cutesy way that one interacts with family and friends is not necessarily the appropriate way to speak in front of students. The initial segment was a smart way to provide an experience for the students but it went on WAAAAAY too long to make a fairly simple point. I honestly can't follow her now, she's going on and on describing users doing this and maybe they'll do that and it just doesn't make any sense anymore. I shouldn't have to work so hard to follow an instructor! On the upside, her slides are excellent. I would strongly suggest that Joy joins Toastmasters (at the very least) to improve her speaking skills, but ideally she would get some professional assistance in her entire teaching presentation: organization and delivery of material (pedagogy) and her basic speaking skills. And I don't appreciate the host "spinning" this deficiency by saying "it's a lot to follow and that's why you should buy the course"... That's just shabby! Perhaps Joy could study other extremely polished and effective CreativeLive presenters like Chris Gilbert (as a woman role model) or others like John Lee Dumas or James Wedmore all of whom are also delivering complex technical material but do it with clarity, confidence and style.

user-7a3da3
 

Excellent class, especially for someone new to ux design, story boarding, etc. Very good examples showing wireframes too! thank you Joy Liu. PS - remember to floss, very important for your health!!

Student Work

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