Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

We examine the popular Personas method and consider claims that personas can reflect empirical data and serve as an information source for development teams. We argue that there are significant methodological and practical difficulties for personas. It is difficult to determine how many, if any, users are represented by a persona, and thus is difficult to know whether a persona is relevant for intended users. Personas cannot be adequately verified or falsified and therefore have no demonstrable validity. We believe personas are likely to lead to political conflicts and to undermine the ability for researchers to resolve questions with data. We suggest potential research to evaluate the Personas method more thoroughly. Until the methodological issues are resolved, it is best not to consider personas to be a means to communicate data.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Blomquist

Arvola

(2002, October) Personas in action: ethnography in an interaction design team. Paper presented at NordiCHI 2002, Arhus, Denmark.

Chapman

C. N.

(2005, April). Personal observations at User Experience Day 2005 (internal Microsoft conference). [Extant data will be made be available for onsite review under non-disclosure agreement by contacting the first author.].

Chapman

C. N.

Burgess

Ball

(2005, April). User scenarios: design for real users while keeping engineers, PMs, planners and VPs happy. Presented at User Experience Day 2005 (internal Microsoft conference), April 2005.

Chapman

C. N.

Milham

R. P.

ElRif

(forthcoming). Why not to use personas. Conference paper.

Cooper

(1999). The Inmates are Running the Asylum. New York: Macmillan.

Grudin

Pruitt

(2002, June). Personas, participatory design and product development: an infrastructure for engagement. Paper presented at Participatory Design Conference 2002. Malmo, Sweden. Online (June 2006) at: http://www.research.microsoft.com/research/coet/Grudin/Personas/Grudin-Pruitt.doc.

McQuaid

H. L.

Goel

McManus

(2003, June). When you can't talk to customers: using storyboards and narratives to elicit sympathy for users. Paper presented at Designing Pleasurable Products and Interfaces 2003, Pittsburgh, PA.

Popper

(1963). Conjectures and Refutations. London: Routledge and Keagan Paul.

Pruitt

Adlin

(2006). The Persona Lifecycle: Keeping People in Mind Throughout Product Design. Amsterdam: Morgan Kaufman.

10.

Pruitt

Grudin

(2003, June) Personas: practice and theory. Paper presented at Designing for User Experience 2003. San Francisco, CA. Online (June 2006) at: http://research.microsoft.com/copyright/accept.asp?path=http://www.research.microsoft.com/research/coet/Grudin/Personas/Pruitt-Grudin.doc&pub=ACM.

11.

Rönkkö

(2005, January). An empirical study demonstrating how different design constraints, project organization, and contexts limited the utility of personas. Paper presented at Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences 2005, Waikoloa, HI.

12.

Rönkkö

Hellman

Kilander

Dittrich

(2004, July). Personas is not applicable: local remedies interpreted in a wider context. Paper presented at Participatory Design Conference 2004, Toronto, ON.

13.

Sinha

(2003, April). Persona development for information-rich domains. Presentation at Computer-Human Interaction (CHI) 2003, Ft. Lauderdale, FL.

The Personas' New Clothes: Methodological and Practical Arguments against a Popular Method

Abstract

Get full access to this article

References