Persona

The persona represents one of the key tools in interaction design introduced by Alan Cooper (1999). Each persona is a fictitious aggregate and a representation of target users  : “a precise description of a hypothetical user and his or her goals, and it represents the user throughout the whole design process” . The basis for creating personas are interviews and observations in the pre-design phase and every persona is carefully described as well as given a name and a face (for a detailed description of a design project, using personas see Blomquist and Arvola 2002). Merholz et al. explain that the most efficient personas “tell their story in their own words, often using quotes from actual research participants”. Cooper et al.  argue that “although personas are depicted as specific individuals, because they function as archetypes, they represent a class or type of user of a specific interactive product. A persona encapsulates a distinct set of behaviour patterns regarding the use of a particular product (or analogous activities if a product does not yet exist), which are identified through the analysis of interview data, and supported by supplemental quantitative data as appropriate.” For a detailed analysis of personas and their potential benefits to the design process, see Miaskiewicz and Kozar (2011) and Cooper et al. (2007).