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The Persona Lifecycle : Keeping People in Mind Throughout Product Design (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Interactive Technologies) (Paperback)

by John Pruitt (Author), Tamara Adlin (Author) "We would like to introduce you to Tanner, shown in Figure 1.1..." (more)
Key Phrases: persona lifecycle, persona effort, family planning phase, Design Maps, Reality Maps, United States (more...)

4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (19 customer reviews)

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Customers buy this book with The User Is Always Right: A Practical Guide to Creating and Using Personas for the Web (Voices That Matter) by Steve Mulder

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This item: The Persona Lifecycle : Keeping People in Mind Throughout Product Design (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Interactive Technologies) by John Pruitt
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The User Is Always Right: A Practical Guide to Creating and Using Personas for the Web (Voices That Matter) by Steve Mulder
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Editorial Reviews

Review
"Personas personified. The definitive word on why personas are better than people in guiding your designs. Filled with case histories, sidebars, and helpful, useful guidelines as well as deep, penetrating analyses. A big book, and for reason. This book is unique in that it is truly for everyone: the practitioner, the researcher, and the teacher. Did I say this was essential reading? Well, it is: if you use personas, if you have thought about using them, if you don't even know what they are, this is the book for you." - Don Norman, author of Emotional Design and The Design of Everyday Things

"Personas are powerful design tools, which are that much more dangerous if they are grounded in weak methodology. Pruitt and Adlin show you how to do personas right and how to base them on real user data. Follow their advice or risk disaster." Jakob Nielsen, author of Usability Engineering and Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity

Book Description
A field guide exclusively focused on interaction design's most popular new technique.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

Paperback: 744 pages
Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann; 1 edition (April 24, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0125662513
ISBN-13: 978-0125662512
Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 7.5 x 1.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (19 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #230,583 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Surprise Me!

Inside This Book (learn more)

First Sentence:
We would like to introduce you to Tanner, shown in Figure 1.1. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
persona lifecycle, persona effort, family planning phase, persona artifacts, collage toolkit, persona practitioners, target customer characterizations, comparison facilitators, brand ladder, persona posters, persona method, persona creation process, persona team, assumption personas, feral personas, persona birth, researching your own organization, persona conception, assimilation exercise, design personas, lifestyle snapshot, persona sketches, persona campaign, user archetypes, user role model

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Design Maps, Reality Maps, United States, Microsoft Corporation, Alan Cooper, Leo Schachter, Whitney Quesenbery, Best Buy, Jamesen Carr, Virgin Atlantic, American Life Project, Pew Internet, Robert Barlow-Busch, Running the Asylum, Tanner Thompson, The Inmates, Database Management, Jonathan Grudin, Usability Engineer, Craig Hally, Forrester Research, Geoffrey Moore, Larry Constantine, Margaret Martinez, Quarry Integrated Communications

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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Surprise Me!

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	73% buy the item featured on this page: The Persona Lifecycle : Keeping People in Mind Throughout Product Design (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Interactive Technologies) 4.7 out of 5 stars (19) $67.45
	12% buy The User Is Always Right: A Practical Guide to Creating and Using Personas for the Web (Voices That Matter) 5.0 out of 5 stars (8) $29.70
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Customer Reviews

19 Reviews

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4.7 out of 5 stars (19 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of THE HCI Resource Books for Your Shelf, March 22, 2007

By	Arnold Lund "Arnie" (Redmond, WA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The persona book that every design professional and academic researcher needs, July 5, 2006

By	T. Miaskiewicz (Boulder, CO USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars putting the user first, May 16, 2006

By	K. Geminder "user experience professional" (San Jose, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent resource for all product managers
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... Read more

Published 2 months ago by Tim Grabacki

5.0 out of 5 stars THE personas book for anyone interested in the topic
I have a background in experimental psychology and human-computer interaction. So, when my organization tasked my team with creating the first set of personas we'd be using, I... Read more

Published 2 months ago by Daniel Mayes

5.0 out of 5 stars You must buy it
If you are new to the subject, this book is your reference. John Pruitt and Tamara Adlin explained the persona life cycle very smoothly with hundreds of examples and case... Read more

Published 3 months ago by Ahmed Bassel

3.0 out of 5 stars Loads of information...get ready to extend your process
This book is full of handy processes. I have to say, you MUST be dedicated to building personas...and so does your organization. Read more

Published 15 months ago by James A. Russell

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best practitioners books I've read for a long time
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... Read more

Published 19 months ago by Colleen Dancer

5.0 out of 5 stars Theory, Case Studies and Practice
Finally, someone has produced a 'definitive guide' to personas.

I really liked Cooper's idea of personas when I first came across it. Read more

Published 21 months ago by Ash Donaldson

2.0 out of 5 stars The authors missed the boat. One of the few books I cannot recommend.
(I've been doing personas since 2000, right after reading Cooper's Inmates are Running the Asylum).

I had great expectations for this book, but was sadly... Read more

Published on February 14, 2007 by Todd Warfel

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is for you if you design and develop products and services for people.
If you are involved with designing and developing products and services for people, you know the importance of keeping the user (people) in mind throughout the product design... Read more

Published on January 22, 2007 by David Dick

5.0 out of 5 stars Quite simply the best book available on personas
Tamara and John got it right. Finally a book that goes beyond evangelization and provides real information on how to successfully produce personas within almost any organization... Read more

Published on January 20, 2007 by alex berg

5.0 out of 5 stars Easily implementable advice!
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... Read more

Published on September 13, 2006 by Howard Snyder

› See all 19 customer reviews...

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