Overview of the Persona Lifecycle

Developing and Validating Personas in e-Commerce: A Heuristic Approach

“…We propose a heuristic approach that includes a limited number of both qualitative as well as quantitative methods, including user observations, user tests, in-depth interviews, data mining, and surveys. Persona development must be based on both qualitative and quantitative data if a fully rounded and believable set of personas is to be developed [1,4]. A second important point is rather than using a particular method in isolation, we recommend using qualitative and quantitative data gathering methods in parallel to extract relevant themes.…”

“…After data were collated from all sources, emerging themes and patterns were extracted [7] and summarized as various persona "dimensions" (see [1,5] for structuring persona attributes). Initially 10 dimensions were extracted and then reduced to four, which were mapped onto a "persona space" (Figure 1).…”

“…Results from traditional methods such as questionnaires and interviews are often too complex or too cumbersome to digest [1]. Furthermore, design specifications can fairly quickly become out-of-date and may simply not be adhered to by the development team.…”

“…The exact method of how to derive and construct personas is a topic of debate [1]. Grudin and Pruitt [4] advocate a multiple-methods approach, with the use of a range of qualitative and quantitative data to achieve greater accuracy and utility for persona creation.…”

“…The description of a persona usually consists of a name, basic demographics, motivations, product usage patterns, personal likes, etc. The aim of personas is to inform design and facilitate communication among stakeholders [1]. The persona method has gained a substantial following among developers [3] and is now a standard component of user experience projects in many companies.…”