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1 – 10 of over 2000Joni Salminen, João M. Santos, Soon-gyo Jung and Bernard J. Jansen
The “what is beautiful is good” (WIBIG) effect implies that observers tend to perceive physically attractive people in a positive light. The authors investigate how the WIBIG…
Abstract
Purpose
The “what is beautiful is good” (WIBIG) effect implies that observers tend to perceive physically attractive people in a positive light. The authors investigate how the WIBIG effect applies to user personas, measuring designers' perceptions and task performance when employing user personas for the design of information technology (IT) solutions.
Design/methodology/approach
In a user experiment, the authors tested six different personas with 235 participants that were asked to develop remote work solutions based on their interaction with a fictitious user persona.
Findings
The findings showed that a user persona's perceived attractiveness was positively correlated with other perceptions of the persona. The personas' completeness, credibility, empathy, likability and usefulness increased with attractiveness. More attractive personas were also perceived as more agreeable, emotionally stable, extraverted and open, and the participants spent more time engaging with personas they perceived attractive. A linguistic analysis indicated that the IT solutions created for more attractive user personas demonstrated a higher degree of affect, but for the most part, task outputs did not vary by the personas' perceived attractiveness.
Research limitations/implications
The WIBIG effect applies when designing IT solutions with user personas, but its effect on task outputs appears limited. The perceived attractiveness of a user persona can impact how designers interact with and engage with the persona, which can influence the quality or the type of the IT solutions created based on the persona. Also, the findings point to the need to incorporate hedonic qualities into the persona creation process. For example, there may be contexts where it is helpful that the personas be attractive; there may be contexts where the attractiveness of the personas is unimportant or even a distraction.
Practical implications
The findings point to the need to incorporate hedonic qualities into the persona creation process. For example, there may be contexts where it is helpful that the personas be attractive; there may be contexts where the attractiveness of the personas is unimportant or even a distraction.
Originality/value
Because personas are created to closely resemble real people, the authors might expect the WIBIG effect to apply. The WIBIG effect might lead decision makers to favor more attractive personas when designing IT solutions. However, despite its potential relevance for decision making with personas, as far as the authors know, no prior study has investigated whether the WIBIG effect extends to the context of personas. Overall, it is important to understand how human factors apply to IT system design with personas, so that the personas can be created to minimize potentially detrimental effects as much as possible.
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Tra Huynh, Adrian Madsen, Sarah McKagan and Eleanor Sayre
Personas are lifelike characters that are driven by potential or real users’ personal goals and experiences when interacting with a product. Personas support user-centered design…
Abstract
Purpose
Personas are lifelike characters that are driven by potential or real users’ personal goals and experiences when interacting with a product. Personas support user-centered design by focusing on real users’ needs. However, the use of personas in educational research and design requires certain adjustments from its original use in human-computer interface design. This paper aims to propose a process of creating personas from phenomenographic studies, which helps us create data-grounded personas effectively.
Design/methodology/approach
Personas have features that can help address design problems in educational contexts. The authors compare the use of personas with other common methodologies in education research, including phenomenology and phenomenography. Then, this study presents a six-step process of building personas using phenomenographic study as follows: articulate a design problem, collect user data, assemble phenomenographic categories, build personas, check personas and solve the design problem using personas. The authors illustrate this process with two examples, including the redesign of a professional development website and an undergraduate research program design.
Findings
The authors find that personas are valuable tools for educational design websites and programs. Phenomenography can productively help educational designers and researchers build sets of personas following the process the authors propose.
Originality/value
The use and method of personas in educational contexts are scarce and vague. Using the example contexts, the authors provide educational designers and researchers a clear method of creating personas that are relatable and applicable for their design problems.
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Shamal Faily, Claudia Iacob, Raian Ali and Duncan Ki-Aries
This paper aims to present a tool-supported approach for visualising personas as social goal models, which can subsequently be used to identify security tensions.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present a tool-supported approach for visualising personas as social goal models, which can subsequently be used to identify security tensions.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors devised an approach to partially automate the construction of social goal models from personas. The authors provide two examples of how this approach can identify previously hidden implicit vulnerabilities and validate ethical hazards faced by penetration testers and their safeguards.
Findings
Visualising personas as goal models makes it easier for stakeholders to see implications of their goals being satisfied or denied and designers to incorporate the creation and analysis of such models into the broader requirements engineering (RE) tool-chain.
Originality/value
The approach can be used with minimal changes to existing user experience and goal modelling approaches and security RE tools.
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Zsuzsa Koltay and Kornelia Tancheva
The purpose of this paper is to outline a fast track process Cornell used to develop a user‐focused vision and recommendations on how Cornell University Library should present…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to outline a fast track process Cornell used to develop a user‐focused vision and recommendations on how Cornell University Library should present itself and the information landscape to its users.
Design/methodology/approach
A consultant was hired to conduct local interviews probing audience work habits and needs and to synthesize them into composite personas segmented on the basis of “like” behavior. These “imaginary friends” helped validate and supplement user studies done elsewhere and existing quantitative data from Cornell, thus influencing all the decisions and recommendations that the team produced.
Findings
The personas can also serve as a way to effectively communicate about and develop empathy for user needs throughout planning and implementation.
Practical implications
Understanding and assessing the information seeking and managing needs, habits, and expectations of a library's audience are crucial for creating a digital library environment that is relevant to users. While anthropological studies are most meaningful, can you be sure that results produced at other institutions are complete and relevant for your own environment and purpose? The use of personas provides an effective tool that validates such comparisons.
Originality/value
Personas have been mostly used in industry, but in our process they proved a useful and relevant benchmark for the academic library environment.
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Library space and services should center on library patrons and what they need. Trying to match the needs of each patron can become a daunting task. A new approach needs to be…
Abstract
Purpose
Library space and services should center on library patrons and what they need. Trying to match the needs of each patron can become a daunting task. A new approach needs to be taken – one that describes patrons and their needs in a useful way. Using an approach from marketing and product design, personas or user groups offer a unique approach to thinking and describing patron needs to assist in the identification and design of library space and services.
Methodology/approach
The identification, development, and validation of personas employs an iterative process using both qualitative and quantitative methods to first identify user patterns, then develop the patterns into meaningful descriptions, and finally to validate the personas. Once validated, additional data is collected, and, as librarians become persona-minded, the persona descriptions continue to be enriched.
Findings
The chapter provides a description of personas found in one academic library and how those personas were developed before being used to assist in library space identification and development. One unique feature of our personas was the fluid nature where patrons would shift personas depending on personal needs.
Practical implications
Personas are a practical and meaningful tool for thinking about library space and service design in the development stage. Several examples of library spaces that focus on the needs of specific personas are provided.
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Karla Straker, Genevieve Mosely and Cara Wrigley
The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new strategic management tool – the reverse persona. In doing so, the methods, use and benefits documented from a case study with a…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new strategic management tool – the reverse persona. In doing so, the methods, use and benefits documented from a case study with a global franchisee organization are presented.
Design/methodology/approach
This tool was derived from working with a global franchisee organization sought to design and launch a new product into the market. The reverse persona was deployed through n=14 qualitative interviews with franchisee owners were conducted to understand their perceptions of customers, awareness and concern of competition and their willingness to take risks. These insights were collated to develop reverse personas for the senior leadership team within the organization.
Findings
Changing the scope of personas from external customers to internal employee development, can further strengthen the method’s effectiveness in decision-making and strategic management, particularly for the implementation and roll out of new products.
Practical implications
In the case study, the senior leadership team saw the manager persona as a strategic aid to, “Help target the implementation of new products in stores, select franchise owners for potential new roles and to deeply understand the motivations, challenges and attributes of their middle management contributing to the competitive advantage of the organisation.”
Originality/value
This article is the first to explore the use of personas for internal strategic planning use within a company.
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Mahmooda Khaliq, Dove Wimbish and Angela Makris
This study aims to understand the utility of personas and illustrate, through a case study, how a persona-building exercise in a Community Based Prevention Marketing (CBPM…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to understand the utility of personas and illustrate, through a case study, how a persona-building exercise in a Community Based Prevention Marketing (CBPM) training of community leaders elicited important insights that complemented findings from ongoing formative research on vaccine hesitancy in the Hispanic/Latino population in the USA during COVID-19 pandemic.
Design/methodology/approach
An exploratory concurrent parallel qualitative study design compared three personas created by community-based organization members (n = 37) to transcripts from five formative research focus groups (n = 30) from the same project. All participants in this study were recruited by the National COVID-19 Resiliency Network as part of their capacity-building and formative research activities. Grounded theory guided the content analysis.
Findings
This study found personas and focus groups to be complementary. A high degree of co-occurrence was observed when investigating the uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine under the categories of barriers, culture and communication. Between the two methods, the authors found strong associations between fear, disruption to the value system, work-related barriers, inaccessibility to health care and information sources and misinformation. Areas of divergence were negligible.
Research limitations/implications
While personas provided background information about the population and sharing “how” to reach the priority population, focus groups provided the “why” behind the behavior, followed by “how”.
Practical implications
A community-driven persona-building process built on cultural community knowledge and existing data can build community capacity, provide rich information to assist in the creation of tailored messages, strategies and overall interventions during a public health crisis and provide user-centered, evidence-based information about a priority population while researchers and practitioners wait on the results from formative research.
Originality/value
This case study provided a unique opportunity to analyze the complementary effectiveness of two methods acting in tandem to understand the priority population: stakeholder-informed persona-building and participant-informed focus group interviews. Understanding their complementary nature addresses a time gap that often exists between researchers and practitioners during times of crises and builds on recommendations associated with bringing rigor into practice, promoting academic contribution to real-world issues and building collaborative partnerships. Finally, it supports the utility of a nimble tool that improves social marketers’ ability to know more about their audience for intervention design when time is of the essence and formative research is ongoing.
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The purpose of this paper is to formally introduce the future persona, a futures method to let scenarios come to life. A future persona is a scenario-specific fictional individual…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to formally introduce the future persona, a futures method to let scenarios come to life. A future persona is a scenario-specific fictional individual living in the future scenario (s)he is meant to depict. The paper provides a formal, systematic and clear step-by-step guide on how to create engaging and effective future personas after a scenario planning exercise.
Design/methodology/approach
After having introduced the future persona method, tracing it back to the customer persona method in user centered design (UCD) and differentiating it from previous uses of futures characters in the futures studies literature and in other domains, an example of the creation process of four future personas based on four scenario archetypes of the futures of work is provided, illustrated with pictures and discussed.
Findings
Future personas, with their narratives and graphical illustrations, are found to be particularly useful to convey scenarios to a target audience.
Practical implications
Futures personas can be used in a scenario planning exercise to increase the clarity of scenarios in the mind of scenario planners and to let scenarios be known inside an organization.
Originality/value
Future personas can substantially enrich scenarios, increasing their liveliness, playfulness and empathy.
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Eva Turk, Viola Wontor, Cecilia Vera-Muñoz, Lucia Comnes, Natercia Rodrigues, Giovanna Ferrari and Anne Moen
A broader challenge of co-creating digital solutions with patients addresses the question how to apply an open-access digital platform with trusted digital health information as a…
Abstract
Purpose
A broader challenge of co-creating digital solutions with patients addresses the question how to apply an open-access digital platform with trusted digital health information as a measure to transform the way patients access and understand health information. It further addresses use this for adherence to treatment, risk minimization and quality of life throughout the integrated patient journey. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the early steps in towards progress to co-creating the digital solution.
Design/methodology/approach
To coordinate the co-creation process, the authors established a multiphased plan to deep-dive into user needs and behaviors across patient journeys, to identify nuances and highlight important patterns in stakeholder and end-user segment at various stages in the patient's journey.
Findings
A set of tools was designed to serve as a human-centered compass throughout the lifecycle of the project. Those tools include shared objects; personas, user journeys, a set of performance indicators with related requirements – all those tools being consistently refined in ongoing co-creation workshops with members of the cross-functional stakeholder groups.
Originality/value
In this study, a multidisciplinary, public-private partnership looked at integrated digital tool to improve access, understanding and adherence to treatment for diverse groups of patients across all stages of their health journeys in a number of countries including European Union (EU) and United States of America (USA). As a result of this work, the authors attempt to increase the possibility that the improved availability and understanding of health information from trusted sources translates to higher levels of adherence to treatment, safer use of medication (pharmacovigilance), better health outcomes and quality of life integrated in the patient's journey.
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Kirstine Zinck Pedersen and Peter Kjær
The purpose of this paper is to explore how the patient comes to be seen as a solution to governance problems.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how the patient comes to be seen as a solution to governance problems.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper studies health policy discourse in Denmark from 1970 to 2000. Based on an analysis of national policy documents, the paper traces how the patient is redefined as part of governance problems.
Findings
The paper suggests that “the new patient” coincides with changes in healthcare governance and is not just a clinical concern. The persona of the patient has been mobilized in dissimilar ways in addressing specific policy problems, resulting in both a duty-based idea of a socio-economically responsible patient and a rights-based idea of a demanding health-service consumer.
Research limitations/implications
The study is limited to policy documents that address healthcare governance in one country. It does not describe the broader evolution of patient ideas or the practical impact of political discourses.
Practical implications
Practitioners should expect to encounter conflicting views of patient responsibilities, interests and involvement. Such conflicts are not only related to a lack of conceptual clarity but are indicative of how the new, active and responsible patient has become a key clinical concern and a central element of health policy governance.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to the understanding of “the new patient” in discussions on patient-centred healthcare and empowerment by emphasizing the definition of the patient in a political context. The latter has often been ignored in existing research.
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