Abstract
In a typical design process, the user group is one of the most important pillars for design decisions. The characteristics of the intended user group is usually identified with the help of personas. Personas help designers to create empathy with their user group and understand their needs and requirements better. In other words, designers use personas as a prototype to provide constructive design critiques to their designs. However, persona creation for the design of products with novel technologies is challenging as there is no real user of these technologies to base the persona on. This problem leads us to a workshop in which we question a provocative design solution where personas from fictional users are created and tested by the designers. Two groups, each having three participants, prototyped personas by real world scenario mapping and tested them by provoking conceptually with binary questions. At the end of the session, designers questioned their presumptions, approach and attitude during the process of persona creation. As a result of the discussions; inscriptions and prescriptions are speculated on for further studies.
Keywords
provocative prototypes, persona, design fiction
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/learnxdesign.2019.14115
Citation
Tuna, N.,and Caglar, E.(2019) An Exploratory Study for Provocative Prototypes: Creating Personas, in Börekçi, N., Koçyıldırım, D., Korkut, F. and Jones, D. (eds.), Insider Knowledge, DRS Learn X Design Conference 2019, 9-12 July, Ankara, Turkey. https://doi.org/10.21606/learnxdesign.2019.14115
Creative Commons License
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An Exploratory Study for Provocative Prototypes: Creating Personas
In a typical design process, the user group is one of the most important pillars for design decisions. The characteristics of the intended user group is usually identified with the help of personas. Personas help designers to create empathy with their user group and understand their needs and requirements better. In other words, designers use personas as a prototype to provide constructive design critiques to their designs. However, persona creation for the design of products with novel technologies is challenging as there is no real user of these technologies to base the persona on. This problem leads us to a workshop in which we question a provocative design solution where personas from fictional users are created and tested by the designers. Two groups, each having three participants, prototyped personas by real world scenario mapping and tested them by provoking conceptually with binary questions. At the end of the session, designers questioned their presumptions, approach and attitude during the process of persona creation. As a result of the discussions; inscriptions and prescriptions are speculated on for further studies.