Abstract
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 25-46 |
Number of pages | 22 |
Journal | Persona Studies |
Volume | 4 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 5 Nov 2018 |
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Creating personas for political and social consciousness in HCI design. / Wilson, Anna ; De Paoli, Stefano; Forbes, Paula; Sachy, Marco.
In: Persona Studies, Vol. 4, No. 2, 05.11.2018, p. 25-46.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
TY - JOUR
T1 - Creating personas for political and social consciousness in HCI design
AU - Wilson, Anna
AU - De Paoli, Stefano
AU - Forbes, Paula
AU - Sachy, Marco
PY - 2018/11/5
Y1 - 2018/11/5
N2 - Personas have become an important tool for Human-Computer Interaction professionals. However, they are not immune to limitations and critique, including stereotyping. We suggest that while some of the criticisms to personas are important, the use of personas is open to them in part because of an unquestioned focus on explicating user needs and goals in traditional persona research and creation. This focus, while helping designers, obscures some other potentially relevant aspects. In particular, when the goal of the product or software being designed is associated with social and political goals rather than with bringing a product to the market, it may be relevant to focus personas on political aspirations, social values and the will or capacity of personas to take action. We argue that it is possible when producing personas (and associated scenarios) to partially move away from representing needs and embrace personas which more explicitly represent political or social beliefs and values. We also suggest that a phenomenographic approach to user data analysis is one way to achieve this. We provide empirical evidence for our position from two large-scale European projects, the first one in the area of Social Innovation and the second in the area of eParticipation.
AB - Personas have become an important tool for Human-Computer Interaction professionals. However, they are not immune to limitations and critique, including stereotyping. We suggest that while some of the criticisms to personas are important, the use of personas is open to them in part because of an unquestioned focus on explicating user needs and goals in traditional persona research and creation. This focus, while helping designers, obscures some other potentially relevant aspects. In particular, when the goal of the product or software being designed is associated with social and political goals rather than with bringing a product to the market, it may be relevant to focus personas on political aspirations, social values and the will or capacity of personas to take action. We argue that it is possible when producing personas (and associated scenarios) to partially move away from representing needs and embrace personas which more explicitly represent political or social beliefs and values. We also suggest that a phenomenographic approach to user data analysis is one way to achieve this. We provide empirical evidence for our position from two large-scale European projects, the first one in the area of Social Innovation and the second in the area of eParticipation.
U2 - 10.21153/psj2018vol4no2art736
DO - 10.21153/psj2018vol4no2art736
M3 - Article
VL - 4
SP - 25
EP - 46
JO - Persona Studies
JF - Persona Studies
SN - 2205-5258
IS - 2
ER -