Groupware and social dynamics: eight challenges for developers
Communications of the ACM
The Inmates Are Running the Asylum
The Inmates Are Running the Asylum
Personas in action: ethnography in an interaction design team
Proceedings of the second Nordic conference on Human-computer interaction
About Face 2.0: The Essentials of Interaction Design
About Face 2.0: The Essentials of Interaction Design
Proceedings of the 2003 conference on Designing for user experiences
Personas is not applicable: local remedies interpreted in a wider context
PDC 04 Proceedings of the eighth conference on Participatory design: Artful integration: interweaving media, materials and practices - Volume 1
HICSS '05 Proceedings of the Proceedings of the 38th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - Volume 08
The Persona Lifecycle: Keeping People in Mind Throughout Product Design
The Persona Lifecycle: Keeping People in Mind Throughout Product Design
Data-driven persona development
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Motivations for social networking at work
Proceedings of the 2008 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work
Personas: from theory to practices
Proceedings of the 5th Nordic conference on Human-computer interaction: building bridges
When social networks cross boundaries: a case study of workplace use of facebook and linkedin
Proceedings of the ACM 2009 international conference on Supporting group work
Designing for the Digital Age: How to Create Human-Centered Products and Services
Designing for the Digital Age: How to Create Human-Centered Products and Services
INTERACT '09 Proceedings of the 12th IFIP TC 13 International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction: Part II
Collaboration personas: a new approach to designing workplace collaboration tools
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Persona cases: a technique for grounding personas
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Computer Supported Cooperative Work
Personas, people and participation: challenges from the trenches of local government
Proceedings of the 12th Participatory Design Conference: Research Papers - Volume 1
Emphasizing dysfunctional group dynamics in collaboration personas: specification of an approach
CHI '13 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Guidelines for integrating personas into software engineering tools
Proceedings of the 5th ACM SIGCHI symposium on Engineering interactive computing systems
The secret life of a persona: when the personal becomes private
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Cooking personas: Goal-directed design requirements in the kitchen
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies
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Personas are a critical method for orienting design and development teams to user experience. Prior work has noted challenges in justifying them to developers. In contrast, it has been assumed that designers and user experience professionals - whose goal is to focus designs on targeted users - will readily exploit personas. This paper examines that assumption. We present the first study of how experienced user-centered design (UCD) practitioners with prior experience deploying personas, use and perceive personas in industrial software design. We identify limits to the persona approach in the context studied. Practitioners used personas almost exclusively for communication, but not for design. Participants identified four problems with personas, finding them abstract, impersonal, misleading and distracting. Our findings argue for a new approach to persona deployment and construction. Personas cannot replace immersion in actual user data. And rather than focusing on creating engaging personas, it is critical to avoid persona attributes that mislead or distract.