This document discusses user-centered design approaches like personas, scenarios, and user stories. It provides templates and examples for creating a persona profile with background, goals, and mapping. Scenarios are described as stories that illustrate user interactions and goals. User stories are goals the user wants to accomplish with the product in a simple format, while use cases describe step-by-step processes. The document advises creating these artifacts based on research to understand users and explore design solutions from their perspective.

1. Personas, scenarios,
and user stories
From “huh?” to “how?”
IxDworks.com 2014

2. User-Centered Design

3. User-centered design approaches
‣ Are done in a way of “setting the scene”
‣ Gather reflections on the problem domain, user’s
goals and real context
‣ Give new perspectives on features and wish lists
‣ Enriches and supports communication between
team members and other stakeholders
‣ Require commitment

4. Not...
...not used to answer business questions,
reflect customer segments nor to describe
detailed technical solutions.
Not a painting, but a set of certain brushes.

5. Data
Primary
Secondary
Supplementary
Political
Non-persona
Persona Scenario Use Cases
A-1
A2,A3...
B1, B2, B3...
A1-a, AI-b
A2-a,A2-b...
A3-a,A3-b...
B1-a, BI-b...
Users
Goals
What will your product do?

6. Goals
Umm...?

7. I want to get from Paris to
Berlin safely and efficiently.

8. 1850’s
I want to get from
Paris to Berlin safely
and efficiently.
About Face 3, :The Essentials of Interaction Design (2007)
+
Goal Tasks

9. 1850’s 2014
I want to get from
Paris to Berlin safely
and efficiently.
About Face 3, :The Essentials of Interaction Design (2007)
+ +
Goal Tasks

10. Experience
goals
Feeling/being, e.g.
Feel cool
Become admired
Remain focused
End
goals
Doing, e.g.
Share a photo
Find a best deal
Do assignment Tasks
Tasks
Tasks

11. • Foundation for the design
• Ground for discussion
• A “reality check”
• Empathy
• Easier to relate
(than to e.g. flow chart)
Why goals?
End
goals
Doing, e.g.
Share a photo
Find a best deal
Do assignment

12. Personas

13. I work with flora
About Face 3 (p. 78)
Gardeners

14. About Face 3 (p. 78)
I have a garden
at home
I work at the
botanic center
I’m a landscape
architecture
= raw data
I work with flora

15. Persona
• Describes imaginative users archetypes.
• Is based on the real research and observation.
• Shows user goals and their behavior patterns
Does not substitute testing with and
talking to the real people!

16. Example template, yours can look different!
Background Bio
Name, (age), occupation, education
Photo(s)
Description
E.g. use environment or context, where the problem occurs
and current solutions and frustrations.
Goals
• What are the user’s end goals?
• 2-4 end goals and 0-1 life goals is enough
for this workshop
Mapping
E.g. computer
skills, necessity vs
fun, quality vs
price.

17. Example template, yours can look different!
Petter Tamm
44, works at the botanic garden, father of two children
Goals
• Wants to manage bulk orderings more efficiently
• Is looking for quality reviews about new products
Reads reviews to
find best...
quality price
As a lead gardener, Petter is responsible in ordering
nutritions and specific soil for the plants for the
city’s botanic garden. Currently he has to do
bi-weekly orders over the phone from his office,
calling manufacturers one by one.

18. Persona ≠ Stereotype
Empathy and sensitivity to subjects vs.
biased caricatures.
Spanish student
Maria
Psychology student
Isabella

19. Before moving on
define “what” of your project
What need does it serve?

20. Scenarios

21. Scenarios
• Stories that help understand interactions
• A cheap way to illustrate design solution
from user’s point of view
• Tell user’s goals, motivations and actions
“What should this product do?”
“How would user behave in this context?”
“What if...?”

22. Scenarios
• present-based
• Focus is set on current practices that illustrate
‘state of the art’ and the problem context
• future-based
• Focus on how problems could be addressed
(without diving into much details).
Scopeofwork

23. It’s friday afternoon. Petter opens his desktop
computer at the botanic center’s office. He wants
to be quickly done with the extra flower soil orders.
Petter decides to order the same combination of
products as four weeks ago, but in smaller quantity. He
does not order nutritions this time.
Petter is not interested in staying at the office long.As
soon as the order is done, he leaves work to pick his
daughter from school.
Context-based scenario

24. It’s friday afternoon. Petter opens his desktop
computer at the botanic center’s office. He wants
to be quickly done with the extra flower soil orders.
Petter decides to order the same combination of
products as four weeks ago, but in smaller quantity. He
does not order nutritions this time.
Petter is not interested in staying at the office long.As
soon as the order is done, he leaves work to pick his
daughter from school.
Story background, settings Goal “quick extra orders”
Motivation: efficiency
High level actions
(e.g. re-ordering x with changes, not ordering y.)

25. • In what settings will the product be used?
• Is the persona frequently interrupted?
• With what other products will it be used?
• What primary activities does the persona need to
perform to meet her goals?
• What is the expected end result of using the product?

26. User Stories
Use Cases

27. User Stories
A simple description
template for the (one)
goal the user wants to
do with your product.
As a (role)
I want to do (what),
so I can benefit (how).
As a tourist
I want to find the cheapest
public transport route
from Airport to my Hotel
so I can save money.

28. User Stories
Epic / Saga user stories
Theme user stories Theme user stories
Theme user storiesTheme user stories
Theme user stories
Theme user stories
Adopted from Mike Cohn
User stories with clear conditions of satisfactions

29. Use Cases
A step-by-step
description of one
process, which helps the
user (and other actors)
to achieve a result.
Components:
Use Case,Actors, Steps

30. Example
Use Case – Search of the cheapest public transport route.
Actor – Tourist
Steps –
1. Specify “from” and “to” locations
2. Select day and time of a) arrival or b) departure
3. Show search results with the cheapest price first
Use Cases

31. As a side note...

32. Design issues
Elastic user
Self-
referential
design
Fits opinions Inside jokes
Edge cases
Extremes
“Eurekas!”
Isolation

33. Exercise 2
For your team’s project:
create 1 persona, 1 scenario and few
user stories or use cases.

34. Reference
• Cooper,A., Reinmann, R., Cronin, D. (2007).
About Face 3:The Essentials of Interaction
Design. England:Wiley
• Goodwin, Kim. 2001.“PerfectingYour
Personas.” Cooper Newsletter, July/August.