Users

Types of Users
User profile
Persona
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Who are the users?

▪ Can be a simple and naïve question

▪ Obviously …
- Users are the people who will use the final product to accomplish
a goal.

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http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/ford-car-makers-wear-age-suits-to-design-
for-older-drivers-1.2762417
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Know your users

▪ Who they are?

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Know your users

▪ Who they are?

You are not (usually)

your user

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Principles of User-Centered Design

▪ Put people first

▪ Users and their goals should influence design
- Design should not just be influenced by technology

▪ Focus on users and their tasks right from the beginning

▪ Iterative design and evaluation
- Users are consulted throughout the process and their feedback
is fed back into the design

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Human Factors

▪ Human factor principles in user experience (UX) design refers

to the ways in which the design team considers the
demographics, personality traits, desires, and physical
limitations of the product's users.

▪ Users are limited in their capacity to process and retrieve

information

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Try to read the paragraph below…

▪ According to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't

mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt
tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset
can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs
is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef,
but the wrod as a wlohe and the biran fguiers it out aynawy.

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Read the lists below, cover it up, and then try to recall as many
of the items as possible
▪ 3, 12, 6, 20, 15, 49, 81, 76, 8, 97, 13, 56

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Read the lists below, cover it up, and then try to recall as many
of the items as possible

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Read the lists below, cover it up, and then try to recall as many
of the items as possible
▪ 3, 12, 6, 20, 15, 49, 81, 76, 8, 97, 13, 56

▪ Cat, house, paper, laugh, people, red, yes, number, shadow,

broom, rain, plant, lamp, chocolate, radio, one, coin

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Read the lists below, cover it up, and then try to recall as many
of the items as possible

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According to George Miller’s (1956) theory, 7 ± 2
chunks of information can be held in short –
term memory at any time.

How to apply this in interface design?

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How to apply this in interface design?

▪ Have only 7 options on a menu

▪ Display only 7 icons on a menu bar
▪ Place only 7 items on a drop down menu

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Common mistake

▪ Many people start by designing the interface

▪ But how do you know…
- what the software needs to do?
- what the user wants to do?
- what needs to be displayed?
- how the info should be organized?
- what should be shown together, or in sequence?

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Understanding the type of users

▪ All the users are

- Equal??

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Who are your users?

▪ People who directly interact with the product/application to

accomplish a task
▪ But is that it?
▪ Others
- Those who manage users, i.e. supervisors
- Those who receive output from the system, i.e., accountant
- Those who maintain the system, i.e., IT support
- Those who make purchasing decisions, i.e. owner, board

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Categories of users

▪ Three categories of users:

- Primary:
Frequent hands-on (everyday)
- Secondary:
Occasional or via someone else (getting reports)
- Tertiary:
Affected by its introduction (owner)

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Technology for healthcare

▪ Primary Users: Patients, clinicians

- Those who directly interact with the technology
- A diabetes patient uses a smart-phone app everyday to remind
of insulin injection and to register glucose values
▪ Secondary users: developers, technicians
- Those who someway benefit from the technology; use it via an
intermediary
- Designers and developers use the app to test it

▪ Tertiary user: companies that provide funds for the technology

- Those who are affected by the technology use and decide its
purchase/implementation
- A pharmaceutical company funds the smartphone app
development

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Question

▪ Who are the users for the check-out system of a large

supermarket?

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Answer

▪ Check out operators:

- primary users; interact with the system daily

▪ Customers:
- tertiary users; they want it to work properly

▪ Managers and owners:

- secondary or tertiary users;
- they may occasionally interact with the system but mostly
concerned about satisfied customers, safety and good
functionality of system

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Exercise

▪ Who are the primary users of the following systems:

- UBC Canvas system that allows professors/students to keep

track of assignments, labs, grades, syllabus and others.

- Profs and students who frequently use the system

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User factors influencing decisions

▪ User factors affect the development process :

- Age: reduce number of tasks, simplified interface
- Disabilities: larger buttons, sound cues
- Culture: icons, color
- Gender
- Experience

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Types of users and factors influencing decisions

▪ Three types of experiences:

- Novices:
highly visible functions, restricted set of tasks, tutorials to more
complex tasks

- Intermediate:
reminders and tips, interface facilitates advanced tasks

- Experts:
shortcuts for efficiency, customizable interface

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User Profile

▪ Collection of attributes for describing a collection of users

- i.e., age, disabilities, gender, culture, experience, plus any other
factors relevant to a particular system
- e.g., ages 18 - 35

▪ A user profile will help you to understand who you are building
your product for
▪ Most systems will have a number of different profiles

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User Profile

▪ Steps:
- Finding information to build your user profile
- Understanding the type of users
- Creating the user profile

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Finding information to build your user profile

▪ Information can be obtained from

- Product manager
- Marketing studies
- Market analysts
- Customer support
- Census bureau
- Surveys
- others

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Creating the user profile

▪ Demographic characteristics ▪ Specific product experience

- Age, gender, location - Experience with competitors’

▪ Occupation products
- Current job, title ▪ Tasks
- Primary tasks
▪ Company information
- Name, size ▪ Technology available
- Mobile, Laptop
▪ Education
- Degree, major ▪ Others
- Learning style
▪ Computer experience
- Years of experience

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Example

▪ Travel agent characteristics ranges

- Age: 25-40 (average 32 years)
- Gender: 50% female, 50% male
- Job title: Travel agent, travel specialist, travel associate
- Experience level: 0-10 years (typical 3 years)
- Work hour: 40 hours per week
- Education: High school to Bachelor degree
- Location: Anywhere in Canada
- Income: $45,000 - $65,000/ year depends on experience
- Technology: Some computer experience
- Disabilities: no specific limitations

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Persona

▪ A user profile provides a summary describing a collection of users.

▪ Since the profile is meant to include all the users within the group,
the details in the profile generally describe ranges or frequencies
of responses.
▪ Personas
- Personas are descriptions of individual people who represent
groups of users that would interact with your system
- A persona has specific details that accurately reflect and
highlight important features of the group
- Rich descriptions of typical users
- Make profiles more life-like

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Persona

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Persona

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What’s in a Persona

▪ Text description about a user

▪ Background information, hobbies, interests, habits, personality,
likes/dislikes
▪ There’s nothing about the interface/technology you are trying to
design

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What’s in a Persona

▪ How to create a good persona:

- Find the users - Study lots of users to start getting a sense of
who they are
- Build a hypothesis - What is the context that matters
- Verification - Find data to support the initial patterns you
identified
- Finding Patterns - List the patterns/categories you found
- Construct Personas

- https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/creating-
personas-from-user-research-results

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Persona

http://www.uxbooth.com/articles/creating-personas/ Users 36
Be aware of when creating personas

▪ Three primary personals is a common recommendation

▪ Personas should never replace conducting usability activities with
your end user
▪ When creating a persona, it should be fictional, but describe
attributes from real users

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Good personas

▪ A good persona description is not a list of tasks or duties

▪ It’s a narrative that describes the flow of someone’s day, as well as
their skills, attitudes, environment and goals.
▪ A persona answers critical questions that a job description or task
list doesn’t, such as:
- Why are they using this product in the first place?
- Which pieces of information are required at what points in the
day?

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What did we cover

▪ Principle of user-centered design

- Users not technology should drive design
- Iterative design and evaluation

▪ Users
- Primary users
- Secondary users
- Tertiary users

▪ User profiles
- Collection of attributes for a ‘typical’ user

▪ Persona

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