title: Design and evaluation: end users, user datasets and personas.
abstract: Understanding the needs and aspirations of a suitable range of users during the product design process is an extremely difficult task. Methods such as ethnographic studies can be used to gain a better understanding of users needs, but they are inherently time consuming and expensive. The time pressures that are evident in the work performed by design consultancies often make these techniques impractical. This paper contains a discussion about the use of 'personas', a method used by designers to overcome these issues. Personas are descriptive models of archetypal users derived from user research. The discussion focuses on two case studies, the first of which examines the use of personas in the car design process. The second examines the use of personas in the field of 'inclusive design', as demonstrated by the HADRIAN system. These case studies exemplify the benefits 'data rich' personas contribute as opposed to 'assumption based' personas.
authors.affiliation: Loughborough Design School, Loughborough University, United Kingdom. Electronic address: R.Marshall@lboro.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Russell
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Marshall
authors.affiliation: Loughborough Design School, Loughborough University, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Sharon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Cook
authors.affiliation: Loughborough Design School, Loughborough University, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Val
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Mitchell
authors.affiliation: Loughborough Design School, Loughborough University, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Steve
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Summerskill
authors.affiliation: Loughborough Design School, Loughborough University, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Victoria
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Haines
authors.affiliation: Loughborough Design School, Loughborough University, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Maguire
authors.affiliation: Loughborough Design School, Loughborough University, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Ruth
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sims
authors.affiliation: Loughborough Design School, Loughborough University, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Diane
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Gyi
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Loughborough University, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Keith
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Case
mesh_terms: D000886:Anthropometry; D001336:Automobiles; D003198:Computer Simulation; D003258:Consumer Behavior; D016208:Databases, Factual; D006233:Persons with Disabilities; D004867:Equipment Design / Q000379:methods*; D006804:Ergonomics / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D020380:Needs Assessment; D015397:Program Evaluation
keywords: Inclusive design; Personas; User-datasets