Customer Reviews

The Persona Lifecycle: Keeping People in Mind Throughout Product Design (Interactive Technologies)

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I should admit my bias up front. There are those who like little short books that make one point and make it over and over. There are many popular books in our field that are like that, filled with stories that all basically make the same point and are just a couple of hundred pages long. They are heavy on fun reading and pithy quotes, and light on meat. If my company doesn't buy them for me, I usually like to borrow these, read the first chapter and last chapter and skim the rest.

The Persona Lifecycle is the other kind of book. It is a book that is large because it is packed with information and ideas. It is big, because the topic is big. It is organized in a way that lets you take it down from the shelf and just read the bits that are relevant to the problem you have at the time. Are you trying to figure out how to get started? Are you trying to figure out how to engage your organization in the effort, and in user-centered design through the use of personas? Are you trying to figure out how to make your personas more effective? Are you trying to figure out how to drive more business value out of them? There is something for every situation.

There isn't just one way to get value from personas, and so a checklist or cookbook isn't appropriate. What are appropriate are principles that can be used to figure out an approach for a particular context, and lots of examples.

Furthermore, it is a book that doesn't just live in the world of theory, or pontificating about a point of view in order to justify a consulting business. It is a book that is filled with practical advice and the experiences of those who are using personas in their jobs.

This is a must-have resource for the HCI professional's shelf.

I have been anxiously awaiting a "how-to" book on personas since Alan Cooper's 1999 book, "The Inmates are Running the Asylum." This book by Tamara and John not only covers in detail all the "how-tos" of persona creation and use, but also talks about why personas are effective. The chapters about storytelling and the psychological aspects of personas provide concrete and insightful evidence for why personas are an effective approach to user-centered design.

The book is well written, clearly organized, and a very easy read. Also, the use of case studies and stories from the field expand on the book's contents, and provide some interesting examples of how personas are being used today.

I strongly recommend this book to any academic researcher in the HCI area, and any design professional that is currently using or trying to use personas in their organization. This is the book that will further legitimize and popularize the use of personas.

I recently worked on a project with one of the authors (Tamara Adlin) that utilized the Persona Lifecycle spelled out this book. What an amazing process. The principles that Adlin and Pruitt have articulated in this process help bring user centered design methodologies front and center. This is especially useful in highly matrixed or cross functional organizations that have trouble working effectively togeher. You end up with one common vocabulary - around your users/customers - that help everyone in an organization stay focused on who they are designing/developing for. The process helps to diffuse the politics and eliminate mixed signals on strategy -- which is useful to people at all levels in an organization.

This book is full of handy processes. I have to say, you MUST be dedicated to building personas...and so does your organization. If you're just venturing into the space, you certainly find out what's possible.

If this concept is new to your organization, I would recommend finding a way to slowly introduce this process. I am certainly a believer in personas, but don't think you need the whole process to reap 80% of the benefit of personas.

If your org already believes in personas and you have executive sponsorship, the content could really benefit you to launch an entire persona process.

Lately I've been disappointed in many of the so called practitioners books that have crossed my desk, they have been very light on detail, aimed at the novice and do not have enough detail for the experienced professional. This book was different.

Written in a way that makes it accessible to the novice, it is a book that begs to be read from cover to cover. Skimming it just makes you realise that there is so much information in it that you will have to allocate serious time to it. It is full of helpful suggestions, ideas and quotes from people using personas in the field. Importantly it also provides anecdotes of what didn't work for people. It provides plenty of concrete suggestions to implementing personas, and guides you through the lifecycle of them rather than just saying here they are, just use them.

All in all this is a very practical book, written by people experienced in the field, with some great chapters by other experts eg Whitney Queesenberry. I thoroughly recommend it.

Colleen

Finally, someone has produced a 'definitive guide' to personas.

I really liked Cooper's idea of personas when I first came across it. In human factors, we use varying techniques of modelling users but this one seemed to stand above the rest due to its exploitation of our affinity with stories.

Unfortunately, over the years I've noticed personas being used in a haphazard fashion in industry - and for good reason. Practitioners had very little in the way of good references, how-tos or theory behind how to properly implement personas. Well, this book neatly solves all those problems in one shot. Pruitt and Adlin have put together an impressive tome that can be used either as a spot reference, or a definitive guide to implementing personas effectively. I highly recommend it.

This book is an excellent source for developing and using personas. Personas are all about understanding your users from their perspective, not from a purchasing or developer perspectives. The opportunity to create a new product that is easier to use has tremendous value to the users, the customer organization, and your own business. The authors do a great job in laying out the entire process from initial concept through the completed product development.

An especially valuable part to me was the inclusion of examples of personas for products that were not the traditional web-based interaction applications. The success Pfaltzgraff has had through developing personas to create a new line of customizable dinnerware showed me the power of understanding the users for non-high tech products.

As a consultant, I appreciated the "If you are a consultant" subsections. Working with a client to develop personas is a significantly different challenge than creating them as part of an internal team. There were many great suggestions on how to be successful.

I also found the third party vignettes, "Stories from the Field", very helpful. The real world experiences really brought home the process steps described in the text.

This book is a really valuable resource that I've been recommending to my colleagues.

We recently staged a persona open house in strict accordance with John and Tamara's guidelines. Buzz posters, large graphical depictions of six personas, a collage of locations visited to gather user data, and an audio-video presentation of our persona development process came together and delivered the sought-after message to hundreds of Boeing workers and managers. We couldn't have pulled this media event off without this book.

"The Persona Lifecycle" is an extremely thorough documentation of creating and implementing personas. I was particularly impressed with the care taken to document ways and means of implementing personas so they are adopted as part of the ongoing design process, and to prevent them from fizzling out.

I have used the reality and design mapping processes discussed in chapter 10 with great success. I just facilitated a mapping session and the client found the process, not only effective, but fun. This method allows you to immediately employ your personas to find previously undiscovered problems and feature ideas for your product.

Great book. Worth every penny.

I pre-ordered the book and was anxiously (and impatiently) awaiting its release. It was delivered about a week ago and after reading the first few chapters, I knew it was clearly worth the wait. Not only is it an easy read, but it has already sparked more ideas that I ever would have imagined (or could manage this year) on how to engage our clients in a relevant and meaningful way. The tools that John and Tamara have included in this book will help spark the creativity you need to develop innovative new ways to improve the overall customer experience.