We recently worked on a number of projects where we have been developing personas. This can be a powerful tool in bringing focus and clarity about what content to develop and how to present this, especially for larger information sites run by teams with lots of stakeholders.

However, some recent experiences suggest organisations don’t know how best to use these.

Developing effective websites often requires organisational change to a culture where people at all levels in the organisation adopt behaviours that make a 'good user experience' an important goal. A good user experience is one where a user achieves their goals and is highly satisfied with the process; it will encourage reuse and recommendation of the site. If the organisation is not focused on providing a good user experience, they will be unable to build an effective web site. Understanding the user experience, through research methods like usability testing, can be a powerful tool in driving the organisational change needed to develop effective websites.

• What are Personas
• What do personas 'look like'
• How do Personas help
• How Personas can be used
• How not to use the Personas
• In Conclusion...
• References

User-centred design puts the user at the heart of the design process so that the resulting product is easy to use. 'Personas' are a way of bringing the user alive - constantly reminding the development team who they are designing for. Personas, for developing web sites, have been around for a while and over the years we have seen both good and bad practice in the ways they are developed and used - so just how helpful are they?

How people interact with your organisation is likely to change radically over the next few years. The maturing of some key technologies, most notably machine learning and conversational interfaces, means your users may no longer be using your website.

One of the problems of usability testing websites is trying to get testers to behave as they would in the real world. It is a very ‘unnatural’ process. We recruit people into the lab, pay them money and ask lots of questions about the site and why they have done what they have done. Testers focus on the task they have been given, think about what they are doing, try and give rational explanations for their behaviour, and are not distracted by the kids or their phone. This is not what happens in real life where users click through most of the time not thinking very hard about what they are doing. To use Daniel Kahneman terms, in the lab users do more ‘slow’ thinking whereas in real life they are doing a lot of ‘fast’ thinking.

I have always been a bit of a fan of Gov.uk. From a citizen’s point of view, it has transformed many aspects of transacting with Government. Whether it is re-taxing the car, applying for a passport or applying for a patent it is now quick and straightforward. Gov.uk clearly deserves many of the plaudits it has received. The principle that users don’t care about which government body a service is being delivered by - they just want the service - is both sensible and user focused.

Web Usability has been heavily involved in helping to develop a new website for the Alzheimer’s Society that has just been launched. We are very chuffed with this and think the Society’s web team and their design agency have done an amazing job. Take a look at www.alzheimers.org.uk.

We were recently approached to do some usability testing on the Financial Conduct Authority website. In order to prepare the proposal I spoke to a stockbroker friend to get some idea of users' goals and the effectiveness of the site. I was rather surprised to learn that he would never dream of going anywhere near the site. Apparently their business has a staff of 40 specialists – mainly lawyers - whose sole job it is to understand the FCA rules and develop policies and procedures for ensuring they don’t run foul of these.

Cognitive biases are the life blood of psychologists. These are ‘ways we think’ that mean we can make less than ‘rational’ decisions. Dozens of these have been identified from ‘Loss aversion’ to ‘Anchoring’ and I find it very satisfying when we find a good example of a bias. I noticed one recently when testing an on-line wine buying site. We identified that users did not understand how they could buy on this particular site i.e. a minimum of 6 bottles but then as many as they liked. Some felt they could buy less than 6, others that it was multiples of 6. The designers came up with lots of different ways to ensure the messaging was clear and prominent but still many users didn't get it.

Remember the adage “No one ever got fired for buying IBM”? While that may be true, it did not mean IBM knew what they were doing – look at them now!