Comments on: Data Driven Personas – UPA 2007 Tutorial http://www.gurtle.com/ppov/2007/06/13/data-driven-personas-upa-2007-tutorial the personal website of Patrick Kennedy Thu, 18 Mar 2010 04:30:11 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: toddwarfel.com » Blog Archive » Looking Back on Data-Driven Design Research Personas http://www.gurtle.com/ppov/2007/06/13/data-driven-personas-upa-2007-tutorial/comment-page-1#comment-6159 toddwarfel.com » Blog Archive » Looking Back on Data-Driven Design Research Personas Thu, 14 Jun 2007 14:48:54 +0000 http://www.gurtle.com/ppov/2007/06/13/data-driven-personas-upa-2007-tutorial/#comment-6159 [...] Yesterday I taught a day long tutorial at UPA 2007 on data-driven design research personas. Patrick Kennedy has written a nice good review of the tutorial. I say “good,” rather than “nice,” because it’s honest. And honest isn’t always all positive. While most of what Patrick says about the tutorial was positive, he does highlight a few oversights, or areas the tutorial could have been better. And for that, I thank you, Patrick. I’ll take honesty any day over being nice and PC. [...] [...] Yesterday I taught a day long tutorial at UPA 2007 on data-driven design research personas. Patrick Kennedy has written a nice good review of the tutorial. I say “good,” rather than “nice,” because it’s honest. And honest isn’t always all positive. While most of what Patrick says about the tutorial was positive, he does highlight a few oversights, or areas the tutorial could have been better. And for that, I thank you, Patrick. I’ll take honesty any day over being nice and PC. [...]

]]> By: Todd Zaki Warfel http://www.gurtle.com/ppov/2007/06/13/data-driven-personas-upa-2007-tutorial/comment-page-1#comment-6158 Todd Zaki Warfel Thu, 14 Jun 2007 14:45:38 +0000 http://www.gurtle.com/ppov/2007/06/13/data-driven-personas-upa-2007-tutorial/#comment-6158 Thanks for the thorough review, Pat. As someone who comes at this from the point of view of balancing theory with practice, I too struggle sometimes with the purist academic viewpoint of hard core statistical significance in data. It's a balancing act in the real world. Additionally, at <a href="http://messagefirst.com" rel="nofollow">Messagefirst</a> we're continually walking the tightrope of balancing qualitative and quantitative data in our work. It's a real shame that people today can't recognize the value of both of these types of data. Thanks for point out the areas it could have been better. As a practitioner, I'm always striving to improve what we're doing. I'll definitely take these things to heart for the next time. So, next time, I'll have some real data for attendees to work from. And I'm going to have them begin by developing personas at the start. Then we'll introduce some techniques and data and have them evolve their personas. That will be the format used throughout the course, as I think there's a great value in seeing them evolve through the process - something else that was part of the persona lifecycle. Thanks for the thorough review, Pat. As someone who comes at this from the point of view of balancing theory with practice, I too struggle sometimes with the purist academic viewpoint of hard core statistical significance in data. It’s a balancing act in the real world. Additionally, at Messagefirst we’re continually walking the tightrope of balancing qualitative and quantitative data in our work. It’s a real shame that people today can’t recognize the value of both of these types of data.

Thanks for point out the areas it could have been better. As a practitioner, I’m always striving to improve what we’re doing. I’ll definitely take these things to heart for the next time.

So, next time, I’ll have some real data for attendees to work from. And I’m going to have them begin by developing personas at the start. Then we’ll introduce some techniques and data and have them evolve their personas. That will be the format used throughout the course, as I think there’s a great value in seeing them evolve through the process – something else that was part of the persona lifecycle.

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