The User Is Always Right: A Practical Guide to Creating and Using Personas for the Web [Paperback]

Steve Mulder (Author), Ziv Yaar (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0321434536 | ISBN-13: 978-0321434531 | Publication Date: August 31, 2006 | Edition: 1

How do we ensure that our Web sites actually give users what they need? What are the best ways to understand our users' goals, behaviors, and attitudes, and then turn that understanding into business results? Personas bring user research to life and make it actionable, ensuring we're making the right decisions based on the right information. This practical guide explains how to create and use personas to make your site more successful. The User Is Always Right: A Practical Guide to Creating and Using Personas takes you through each step of persona creation, including tips for conducting qualitative user research, new ways to apply quantitative research (such as surveys) to persona creation, various methods for generating persona segmentation, and proven techniques for making personas realistic. You'll also learn how to use personas effectively, from directing overall business strategy and prioritizing features and content to making detailed decisions about information architecture, content, and design.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Steve Mulder is principal consultant at Molecular, an Internet consulting firm in Boston, and an internationally known speaker recognized for his work with personas. He’s a user experience expert who practices what he preaches, with over ten years of experience in user research, information architecture, interaction design, and usability. Ziv Yaar is the vice president of Internet strategy at Molecular, where he has spent over ten years helping companies develop technology and business strategies and has been at the forefront of merging the power of marketing analytics with personas.

Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: New Riders Press; 1 edition (August 31, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321434536
• ISBN-13: 978-0321434531
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #236,573 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What would "Bob" do?, October 4, 2006

By 

Thomas Duff "Duffbert" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The User Is Always Right: A Practical Guide to Creating and Using Personas for the Web (Paperback)

When creating a web site, it's very easy to fall into the trap of designing it for yourself. Unfortunately, you're not the typical user in most cases, nor are you the intended audience. You can avoid this problem with the use of "personas". The subject is covered very well in this book.

User-driven design means that you focus on what the user needs in a system instead of designing features because they're "cool". Personas are imaginary users of your system that you keep in mind while designing how the application will work. But it's much more than just picking a name like Bob and then coding away...

This book goes into the process of interviewing the user base of your proposed application, determining the needs and abilities of that base. A system that is to be used by computer-savvy accountants will not have the same look and feel as a system that is intended for your grandmother. By conducting these interviews and consolidating the results, the designer can get a good idea as to what a typical user will look like. That information is then used to create a number of personas, or fictitious people who will be the target audience. These personas come complete with names, pictures, and a background. Then instead of building features based on how you feel about them, you look at the feature through the eyes of "Bob", based on his attitudes, experience, and personality. It's like having a user available to you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The User Is Always Right takes you through the steps necessary to understand the audience for your system, as well as how to make that audience "real" in terms of individual people. The authors do a nice job in making the process clear and understandable, and by the end you can start building your imaginary friends with confidence. The process outlined here is one that you wouldn't necessarily use for every project, as you could spend days gathering and distilling the data you collect. But the concepts they present, once understood, will allow you to build your "Bob"s even with small systems. Then armed with that knowledge, you can anticipate answers to the question "what would Bob do?"

So... If you are tired of designing really cool systems (to you) that don't ever seem to get used, it may be because you missed the real users. Give the persona technique a try, and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at how it affects your development.

Besides, how else could you actually be commended for inviting and talking to imaginary friends?

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Serious about user centric web design? Read and keep within reach., September 21, 2008

By 

Allan Tan "Lihong Property" (Beijing, China) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The User Is Always Right: A Practical Guide to Creating and Using Personas for the Web (Paperback)

Comprehensive in-depth guide to creating personas using quantitative and qualitative techniques. Well written. No fluff. Note that creating personas requires significant resources, so small businesses would be less likely to develop them. Nevertheless, this book provides valuable insights for anyone serious about developing user centric web sites. If only more "practical guides" were like this one.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The ins and outs of personas, a must read, February 3, 2008

By 

Gócza Zoltán Károly (Budapest, Hungary) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The User Is Always Right: A Practical Guide to Creating and Using Personas for the Web (Paperback)

It is clearly one of the best books on webdesign, a compulsory one on any IA's or IxD's bookshelf.


What I liked:
- the insights this book gives you are instantly actionable, it is really a step-by-step guide
- the authors discuss the topics that are relevant to persona creation (and take it literally, there is great information on survey design, how to segment results, what sources to use to find a photo for your persona, etc.)
- you will find good real world examples
- the book shows multiple approaches based on different needs and constraints
- the copywriting is also outstanding, no nonsense and easy to digest

What I didn't like:
I am trying hard but really can't think of anything :)