[kde-guidelines] Styleguide: Persona

[Thomas Pfeiffer]

On Tuesday 28 January 2014 13:23:50 Heiko Tietze wrote:
> With rewriting the HIG we reach a part now that concerns usability
> primarily. It's rather unconventional to add those information to a HIG,
> but to have all information together, and to follow the theoretical
> approach, it makes perfect sense. Here comes the first page:
> 
> Structure > Task Flow
> * Meet the needs of KDE's personas in your application.
> http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/Usability/HIG/Persona
> 
> == Purpose ==
> 
> A ''persona'' is the representation of a virtual user, based on empirical
> data. The description includes a concise summary of characteristics of the
> user, their experience, goals and tasks, pain points, and environmental
> conditions. Personas describe the target users, giving a clear picture of
> how they're likely to use the system, and what they’ll expect from it.
> 
> The advantage of persona is a common understanding over the development team
> and the dissociation from the personal point of view. In contrast to
> alternative methods like lead user(s) (usually the developer itself), a
> panel of real users or a description per sociological milieus, persona are
> more representative, faster to access, and easier to understand.
> 
> == Guidelines ==
> * Always define persona on ground of empirical data.
> * Add enough information to establish a good impression of the target user.
> But do not write a novel and stay concise. * Common elements are: name, job
> titles and major responsibilities, demographics such as age, education,
> ethnicity, and family status, goals and tasks they are trying to complete
> using the application, physical, social, and technological environment. *
> Add a quote that sums up what matters most to the persona and a casual
> pictures representing that user group. * Discriminate between primary (the
> basic user) and secondary (additional users) persona. If it makes sense,
> describe the group of users that is explicitly not supported by a
> anti-persona. Respect the law of parsimony and have as few personas as
> possible. * Make sure your persona can act in different
> [[Projects/Usability/HIG/Scenario|scenarios]].
> 
> == Best Practice ==
> * Try to use the predefined
> [http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/Usability/Principles/KDE4_Personas| KDE
> personas].
> 
> [[Category:Usability]][[Category:Structure]][[Category:Task_Flow]]
> 
> Maybe we should hi-jack the old persona page instead of only linking. What
> do you mean?

Since the current Persona page is about specific personas, I'd prefer to just 
link to it. We might move the page to the HIG section if we think it makes 
more sense for it to be here, but I think having two separate pages for a 
general description of the method and the generic KDE personas still makes 
sense.

Other than that, the usual: Nothing to criticize about the content, some small 
language improvements done in the wiki ;)

Cheers,
Thomas