Comments on: How to Understand Your Users with Personas

By: Asddd

Asddd — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 14:18:00 +0000

Because of your honesty, if I was looking to buy the book, I would buy it from you (Or seriously consider it). Just thought i’d let you know.

By: Joe

Joe — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 02:40:05 +0000

Great illustration :)

‘Pony’ has been adopted at our work as the word meaning:

“Marketing (or someone else who doesn’t understand web) has come up with a stupid idea for the website. They think it’s a brilliant idea, but it’s crap (probably an idea from before the dot-com bubble burst)”

By: design in lincolnshire

design in lincolnshire — Fri, 21 May 2010 12:40:30 +0000

I really like the comic, put together really well :) I also like the design you have on the comments box very user friendly.

By: WebCreationUK

WebCreationUK — Wed, 12 May 2010 09:47:13 +0000

Brilliant comic mate, well done for this!

By: Supoved

Supoved — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 18:21:06 +0000

Russian translation of this article:
http://inthetube.ru/2010/04/kak-ponyat-svoix-polzovatelej-ispolzuya-personazhej/

Hope authors don’t mind =)

By: Lou Rosenfeld

Lou Rosenfeld — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 03:52:54 +0000

Hi Derek, Amazon is absolutely broken, but being (essentially) a monopoly means never having to say you’re sorry.

The book is most definitely in print, not POD (but a “real” book, with sewn bindings, four color interiors, and other great features), and can be purchased along with a digital copy here: http://www.rosenfeldmedia.com/books/mental-models/

Or, if you must, from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk, though you’d make my day if you bought it directly from us.

Thanks!

By: Rick

Rick — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:58:36 +0000

Pretty fantastic, Brad. :) Our little studio just went through the rigors of coming up with and developing backgrounds on several personas for a major northwest client. (We posted about our experience here http://blog.bullseyecreative.net/customer-persona-development/)

To be honest, it was a lot of fun and something I think the whole team looks forward to doing again. It was interesting that, based on a series of data results, patterns emerged that we were able to build into people that seemed wholly authentic. Looking back on it now, it’s still hard to believe that these people we made don’t actually exist. I think this is the reason persona use is increasing. They’re easy customers to target.

But seriously, we need more ponies on this site. Thanks.

By: Jody

Jody — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 14:10:23 +0000

I want a ponie too! :)

By: WIll

WIll — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:00:22 +0000

This is a very informative post and a very entertaining comic too, PONIES! )

By: Derek Pennycuff

Derek Pennycuff — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:05:49 +0000

Personas for “role playing” during usability testing is my graduate thesis topic in a nutshell. So far I’ve been able to turn up very little info on the idea. Nielsen seems to think it’s a terrible idea due to the loss of authentic user experience.

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20050214.html

While I respect Nielsen, his opinion isn’t the same as data.

There’s a paper that looks at data from one of the Comparative Usability Evaluation studies (#4 I think) and they found that one team out performs expectations based on variables such as recruiting methodology, number of participants, and task coverage.

http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1240839

There were 2 big differences in how this team operated. 1. They took a laptop out and about in a bit of a guerrilla style rather than in a lab. 2. Participants were given a persona and a scenario to play out during their test.

So maybe one of those elements is responsible for the increased performance. Or maybe the combination of the 2. Or maybe it’s a fluke. But it seemed like an easy enough thesis to test so I took it as my research topic. :)

If anyone has further data on the topic, add my interest to Mauricio’s and share it here please.

By: Derek Pennycuff

Derek Pennycuff — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 20:43:16 +0000

I wanted to buy Mental Models last week, but Amazon said it was out of print. Now I’ve had an excuse to dig into it further and I see how Rosenfeld’s business model is essentially print on demand (correct me if I’m wrong) and this confuses Amazon when it comes to ideas such as “out of print”. Glad to be able to put this back on my wish list.

The comic is awesome too, btw. :)

By: Isaac Lewis

Isaac Lewis — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:20:15 +0000

As the above commenters said, I really like this as a teaching method. It’ll be interesting to see where this goes – did anyone see _why’s Poignant Guide to Ruby? Similar concepts (used comics to teach the Ruby programming language) but not quite as succesful IMO – the comics didn’t really tie in to the material.

This is good though. Brad, I’ve just posted your website to http://unistartups.slinkset.com/ , hopefully it’ll give you a traffic boost ;)

By: Neil Dennis

Neil Dennis — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:40:14 +0000

Well done Brad – a thoroughly entertaining and useful article.. illustration helps to make personas easier to understand.

By: Abhijit Shirsath

Abhijit Shirsath — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:01:30 +0000

Awesome article!

By: Shawn

Shawn — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:42:16 +0000

Wondering if anyone on this thread has experience proving the ROI on persona development? How do you typically go about communicating ROI benefits within a persona pitch and then measure once the personas have been developed?

By: Amanda McNeill

Amanda McNeill — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:38:08 +0000

Very fun! Here is an article from Website Magazine you may find interesting it reviews usability tools http://bit.ly/32mqlQ

I am affiliated with usertesting.com but the article covers several tools.

Amanda

By: B MB M

B MB M — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:39:29 +0000

By: B MB M

B MB M — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:38:45 +0000

mjb

By: Mauricio Hernandez

Mauricio Hernandez — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:49:07 +0000

Nice cartoons, very nice to understan a complex idea like that, does the personas work well when testing an interface? or just for design process?

By: admanzion

admanzion — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:57:22 +0000

nice article,really awesome

By: Vege

Vege — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 08:01:57 +0000

Very well said. I like the way you’ve explained it with the use of comic graphics. Awesome work. Thanks!

By: demiroush1835

demiroush1835 — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 06:56:06 +0000

I really enjoy it. Thank for the post. That's great. Nice ps3 games download how to download ps3 games

By: Annika Y

Annika Y — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:45:41 +0000

This is GREAT~ I enjoyed it a lot! Thank you:)

By: deltacubed web design

deltacubed web design — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 08:08:38 +0000

Really enjoyed this – thank you! As others have said, the comic style brings what is essentially a *slightly* dry subject to life. Top work.

By: pixtur

pixtur — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 07:35:55 +0000

Ah, who cares about personas. We want PONIES! :-)

By: Harmony

Harmony — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 01:55:22 +0000

Clear, concise and funny, not to mention useful, thanks guys :)

By: Ara

Ara — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 22:31:41 +0000

Speechless…. Keep up this awesome work!

By: Carl - Web Courses Bangkok

Carl - Web Courses Bangkok — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 08:28:28 +0000

HAHA loved it, specially how random people end up steering a project.

By: Eugenio Grigolon

Eugenio Grigolon — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 18:25:51 +0000

Amazing job with the illustration. Very cool and relaxing. Congrats!

By: Mònica

Mònica — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:37:03 +0000

Great! Now I’ve an incredible tool to present this method to the clients. Thanks Brad!