Voice User Interface Design VUI

As if not enough discussion has been generated over this particular UI design tool on the VUIDs group, it seems the 37 signals post about how they don’t use Personas stirred yet another round of arguments on both their own site as well as in some other UI-related blogs such as Good Experience and The User Experience Soapbox.

I think they all provide a very interesting perspective and valid points both for and against the use of Personas (or Personae) as a design tool.

But for me, aside from it being just one more tool in our UI toolbox, the added extra business value that I find in them (which I didn’t see being brought up on those discussions) is how effective it is to help business owners and other business-side team members move away from thinking about “the user” in an abstract way.

In general, if you’re in the same room with five different people and you mention you want to do something to help improve the experience of their “users”, chances are each and every one of them will have a very different image in their head and idea of who this “user” is and what this “user” needs.

On the other hand, once all the information has been gathered and the right process has been followed to define a User Persona (or Archetype) for your system, then any future discussion takes a very different direction. You’ll notice how now new design decisions and arguments can be centered on your Persona.

It doesn’t have to be too complicated nor time consuming. For example, something as simple as defining a Natalie archetype might be enough: “Natalie is a real estate investor and has an ABC bank customer for about six years. She often calls her branch to get up to date information about interest rates and mortgage products. She normally calls from her home-office, so she’s in a quiet environment. She considers herself tech-savvy, so she likes automation, but time is precious to her, so if things aren’t working fast, she’d rather just talk to someone who can help her quickly.”

With this in hand, you’ll see how asking regular questions such as “how will the user be able to get her balance?” or “will the user need more information after a transaction?” turn into very relevant, in-context discussion starters such as “what’s the best way to offer Natalie the most up to date interest rates?” or “what information will Natalie need after choosing one of our mortgage products to make an investment decision?” respectively.

I understand the concern about using personas to replace talking to real people, but I like to think that they are not just the output of talking to real people, but a way for those people to keep “talking” for the duration of a project. So tell me, what do your users think?

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 13th, 2008 at 9:43 pm and is filed under Dialog Design, Persona. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.