Design ethnography and how user personas can be impactful
User research methods, dangers created from user personas
In today’s world, design is everything. The technology and intelligence behind the product is nothing but worthless if the design is lacking. To design an appealing product, one must take into account the representative users and their context — their natural environment. These include “the physical environment, mental model, habits, and relationships”(77). By observing a particular group, we can start asking the fundamental question of design ethnography — “what do people do and why do they do it?”(82).
When we talk about user research as distinguished from usability testing, we’re talking about ethnography, the study of humans in their culture.(77)
Design Ethnography
As stated above, the fundamental idea and goal of design ethnography is to understand what people do and the reasoning behind their actions. With that information, we can design a product that can not only efficiently and effectively solve a problem, but also from its root. Hall suggests “The four Ds of Design Ethnography” as key points for user research, which includes Deep dive, Daily life, Data analysis, and Drama. Deep dive — living in their shoes, Daily life —being able to keep participants at ease, Data analysis — gain real understanding of the collected information, and lastly Drama — acting out the user understandings (thus creating personas).
User Personas
Best defined by Hall herself, “a persona is a fictional user archetype — a composite model you create from the data you’ve gathered by talking to real people — that represents a group of needs and behaviors” (119). Personas usually contain a photo, name, demographics, role, quote, goals, behavior/habits, skills, environment, relationship, and scenario; all of these categories flesh out a complete fictional user archetype based on the data gathered through the user research. User personas are the users you are targeting with the product at hand.
Good personas can impact not only design, but also business strategy, marketing, and engineering. They can help out with exploring solutions as well as validating already existing solutions. User personas can be, and a lot of times are, the most useful output of user research, as it is a tool for maintaining an empathetic mindset during the design process.
That being said, user personas can also create danger to the product. Not all personas are created equal, and sometimes can be detrimental to the designers. If the persona isn’t “the result of collaborative effort following firsthand user research”, then you’re just “making up a character that might be as relevant to the design process as any given imaginary friend” (121). Through effective user research and proper data analysis, user personas should be useful towards designing an user friendly product that clicks with its user base.
