User Modeling and Stories of Usage

Topics

• User Modeling
  • User Profiles
  • Personas
  • Empathy Maps
• Stories of Usage
  • Scenarios
  • User Stories
  • Jobs to be Done
  • Job Stories

Where Are We?

User Models

User Profile

A user profile is a summary of one category or type of user 

User Profile

More specifically, it is often a list of identified user characteristics relevant to the interactive system being designed

Defining User Groups

User goals or needs are often the most effective way to identify potential user groups

User Profile Elements

• User’s goals
• User’s knowledge and experience  
• User’s job and tasks 
• User’s psychological characteristics 
• User’s physical characteristics 
  

User’s Goals

What do people want or need to achieve by using the interactive system

User’s Goals

Consider both short-term (tactical) and long-term (strategic) goals

User’s Goals

• Example user goals
  • To pay bills before late fees apply (short-term)
  • To improve credit rating (long-term)

User’s Knowledge
and Experience

• Application experience (similar systems) 
• Computing literacy 
• Domain knowledge 
• Education level 
• Native language 
• Other systems used 
• Reading level 
• System experience (particular system) 
• Task experience

User’s Knowledge
and Experience

• Example implications for user interface design: 
  • Low system or task experience
  • Many verbose prompts, and effective error recovery
• High system and task experience
  • Efficient commands, concise error message,and little prompting

User’s Job and Tasks

• Activity/task importance 
• Activity/task structure(e.g. repetitiveness, predictability) 
• Common activities/tasks
• Frequency of use
• Job category (e.g. management, clerical, etc.) 
• Primary training 
• Social interactions
• System use (i.e. mandatory or discretionary)  
• Turnover rate 

User’s Job and Tasks

• Example implications for user interface design: 
  • High frequency of use
    • Ease of use
  • Low frequency of use
    • Ease of learning and remembering

User’s Psychological Characteristics

• Attitude
• Cognitive style (verbal/analytic, spatial/intuitive)
• Culture
• Motivation
• Patience (in accomplishing goal) 
• Stress level
• Values

User’s Psychological Characteristics

• Example implications for user interface design: 
  • Low motivation, discretionary use
    • Ease of learning
  • Low motivation, mandatory use
    • Control, power
  • High motivation (fear)
    • Ease of learning, robustness, control, power
  • High motivation (interest)
    • Power, ease of use

User’s Physical Characteristics

• Age 
• Digital environment
• Gender  
• Handedness 
• Physical challenges
• Physical environment

User’s Physical Characteristics

• Example implications for user interface design: 
  • Younger adults (18-36)
    • Greater manual dexterity
  • Older adults (64 and above)
    • Provide larger than standard touchscreen targets

Example Banksite User Profile

Personas

“A precise description of our user and what he or she wishes to accomplish.” – Alan Cooper

Example Persona

Copyright by respective copyright owners. Used without permission under the Fair Use Doctrine. Source: http://becubed.me/

Another Example Persona

Copyright by respective copyright owners. Used without permission under the Fair Use Doctrine. Source: http://www.webcredible.com/blog/personas-definitive-guide/

Forms of Personas

• Assumption-based
  • Created using known (and possibly incorrect) internal information
  • Helps to quickly identify what we know and don’t know about the users of an interactive system
  • Must always be identified as being assumption-based

Forms of Personas

• Fact-based
  • Created using facts from actual end-user research (e.g. surveys, interviews, etc.)

Why Use Personas?

• Designing for everyone is really designing for no one
• Avoids the “elastic user"
• Communicates key user goals and needs
• Builds team consensus
• Improves design decision efficiency

More About Personas

• Not real people
• Hypothetical archetypes (an ideal example of a type) of actual users
• Specific, but not stereotypes (i.e. designer biases)
• Ideally based on user research (preferably field research data), but focus is on creating a precise description than than complete accuracy
• Must be believable, and should envoke empathy
• Often categorized by user goals, but also sometimes by user roles or segments

Example Elements for Personas

• Name
  
• Photo (when possible)
  
• Occupation
  
• Insightful quote (related to goals or pains)
  
• Personal background (i.e. characteristics, skills, knowledge, attitudes, expectations, behavior patterns, environment, interactions, etc.) 
  
• Key goals
  
• Key actions/behaviours

Copyright by respective copyright owners. Used without permission under the Fair Use Doctrine. Source: https://viget.com/inspire/why-personas-are-valuable/

Share Your Personas

Distribute and share your personas (esp. in-progress) within an organization or company to increase awareness and visibility

Persona Creation Methodology (Research-based)​

• Choose the focus area for the personas
• Identify persona data sources
• Define important user types/categories (often by goals or needs) 
• Collect/process required user data
• Consolidate into potential personas
• Create and prioritize persona skeletons
• Convert skeletons to detailed personas
• Select persona types (e.g. primary persona)

Copyright by respective copyright owners. Used without permission under the Fair Use Doctrine. Source: http://www.slideshare.net/toddwarfel/data-driven-personas

A Variation of Assumption-based 
Personas: Proto-Personas

A persona based on our assumptions, but is viewed as a hypothesis to be iteratively validated and refined

Example Proto-Persona

Copyright by respective copyright owners. Used without permission under the Fair Use Doctrine. Source: http://uxmag.com/articles/

Elements of Proto-Persona

• Name/Image/Quote
• Demographics
• Behaviors (actions)
• Goals and Concerns

Proto-Persona Creation Methodology

• Identify stakeholders and people familiar with target audience
• Conduct a collaborative session to
• Identify many user types/categories
• Individually create draft proto-personas
• Share draft proto-personas, and consolidate/refine
• Prioritize created proto-personas
• Determine persona types (e.g. primary persona)
• Validate and refine, proto-personas, using best methods possible

Methods to Help Validate
(or invalidate!) Proto-Personas

• Surveys
• Interviews
• Observations
• Domain experts
• Broader distribution
• Usability tests

Personas in a Nutshell

• Hypothetical - not real people
• Archetypes - not average users
• Very specific - name, picture, background, attitudes, etc.
• Complete accuracy not essential, but must accurately characterize user base
• More than just job descriptions or demographics
  – goals and actions are critical!
• Often a single primary persona, but not always

Empathy Maps

Empathy Map

An empathy map is a collaborative method to capture and summarize the desires and needs of your audience

Example Empathy Map

Copyright by respective copyright owners. Used without permission under the Fair Use Doctrine. Source: https://www.cccc.org/

Example Empathy Map Template

Copyright by respective copyright owners. Used without permission under the Fair Use Doctrine. Source: http://www.innovationlabs.org.uk/2014/04/25/empathy-maps/

Think & Feel?

• What is important?
• What moves them?
• Things on their mind?
• Worries?
• Aspirations?

See?

• What is their environment?
• Who are around them?
• What situations do they see?
• What are the similar products/systems?
• What problems do they see?

Say and Do?

• What do they say?
• What are their attitudes (public and private)?
• What is their appearance?
• How do they behave?

Hear?

• What do their friends say?
• Work colleagues?
• How about what influencers are saying?

Pain?

• Frustrations?
• Fears?
• Obstacles?

Goals?

• Wants and needs?
• How is success measured?
• Strategies for success?

Empathy Map Summary

• Summarizes desires and needs
• Helps build empathy for your audience
• Map structure
  • Think and feel?
  • See?
  • Say and do?
  • Hear and do?
  • Pains
  • Gains

Stories of Usage

Ways to Represent Stories

• Scenarios
• User Stories
• Jobs To Be Done
• Job Stories

Scenarios

A description of people and their activities,
including reaching their primary goal

User Stories

Jobs To Be Done

A framework, or really a lens, to focus on
customer motivations

The JTBD Framework

Whatever product you are involved in, considering asking the question, what job is your product hired to do?

Job Stories

A job story is an alternative to traditional user stories to collaborate and capture product requirements

User Story

Copyright by respective copyright owners. Used without permission under the Fair Use Doctrine. Source: http://alanklement.blogspot.ca

Job Story

Copyright by respective copyright owners. Used without permission under the Fair Use Doctrine. Source: http://alanklement.blogspot.ca

Example User Stories

As a Central Canadian Bank customer,
I want to withdrawal funds from an ATM
so that I have the cash I need on hand.

As a Central Canadian Bank customer,
I want to transfer funds from one account to another
so that I have the funds to cover a large cheque.

Example Job Stories

When I am running low on cash
I want to withdrawal funds from a nearby ATM
So I can have the cash I need on hand.

When I need more funds to cover an upcoming large cheque
I want to know ahead of time
So I have the funds to cover the cheque.

Another Example Job Story

When:
When someone approaches a bank for a home mortgage and fills out an application...

Motivation (single point of view):
The applicant wants to know if the application is accepted or not...

Expected Outcome:
So that a home mortgage is quickly given to the applicant.

Copyright by respective copyright owners. Used without permission under the Fair Use Doctrine. Source: http://alanklement.blogspot.ca

Another Example Job Story

When:
When someone approaches a bank for a home mortgage and fills out an application...

Motivation (multiple points of view):
The applicant wants to know if the application is accepted or not...
The banker wants to make sure that the application is filled out correctly...
The bank wants to check if the applicant has acceptable credit history...

Expected Outcome:
So that a home mortgage is quickly given to a low risk person, which the bank feels confident it will profit from.

Copyright by respective copyright owners. Used without permission under the Fair Use Doctrine. Source: http://alanklement.blogspot.ca

Summary

• User Modeling
  • User Profiles
  • Personas
  • Empathy Maps
• Stories of Usage 
  • Scenarios
  • User Stories
  • Jobs to be Done 
  • Job Stories

References and Suggested Books

• About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design by Alan Cooper, Robert Reimann and David Cronin
• Lean UX: Applying Lean Principles to Improve User Experience by Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden
• Observing the User Experience by Mike Kuniavsky
• The Essential Guide to User Interface Design by Walter Galitz
• The Inmates are Running the Asylum: Why High-Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity by Alan Cooper
• The Persona Lifecycle: Keeping People in Mind Throughout Product Design by Tamara Adlin and John Pruitt
• The Usability Engineering Lifecycle by Deborah Mayhew