DD+D Presents at UXMasterclass Conference '11

DD+D will give a talk at UXMasterclass Conference 2011 from miaoqi Zhu on Vimeo.

Byron presented at this year's UXMaterclass Conference on Friday, September 16 at the Field Museum. Please find above and below a description of the session and feedback from participants.

Using Theater Techniques to Write Effective Personas

Workshop Description:

Designers don’t always have the luxury of getting to talk with users. In fact, sometimes designers only rely on personas when developing ideas. But if personas are to be useful, then designers must step into the shoes of users to gain the insight and empathy needed to create engaging experiences. Byron’s workshop exhibits acting methodology to draw this connection between user research data, user personas, and design.

He will enthusiastically demonstrate how designers benefit from going back to the theatrical traditions to enhance their character and story development skills. Byron will also increase the understanding and application of theater techniques that aid in the development of more life-like personas than those that merely exist on paper. Leading the Dramatic Diversity team, Byron takes a two-dimensional representation of a customer and brings it to life, eliminating user frustration and increasing ease, enjoyment and engagement in all design elements.

Participant Feedback:

"I tend to be skeptical about "exercises" like this, but I think done well , it could be a great way to get a team reconnected with personas they've been using over time. Also a great way to onboard new team members to existing personas. And for promoting adoption to other teams within an organization."

"Very engaging presenter. Got me thinking about how I could potentially apply this approach within my team. Would recommend to my company where appropriate."

"It taught me to go deeper with personas to find the emotional layer."

"Byron enthusiastically presented the material and interacted with the audience suggestions."

"The speaker brought real examples to demonstrate the usefulness of The Method."

"Thought it was great - just the right level of detail for the time limit and the audience. And it was great to engage the audience instead of just talk!"

Design Empathy and Performance Testing with DFA'11

DD+D had the pleasure of returning to Northwestern University's Design for America this summer. Byron conducted three interactive theater-based workshops with the design teams and leadership.
Two Design Empathy workshops (one for DFA Leadership) and another titled Performance Testing. Our Design Empathy contribution has been added to the DFA Starter Kit Manual.

Here are brief overviews of the sessions and feedback from participants.

Design Empathy - diversity and inclusion training for designers

“Social design education helps develop character, empathy, cultural awareness and flexibility.” Mariana Amatullo VP of Designmatters Social Design Art Center College of Design

One of the goals of DFA Team Captains is to create an environment that values empathy and inclusion and leverages them to promote effective team communication and community collaborations.

Here are 3 key areas of focus and sample exercises to use with your teams to get you started. Remember, it is a Journey.

DFA Team Captains can help team members to:

Connect their own interest and objectives with project issues and partner organizations, helping members to discover and develop their individual voices as socially responsible designers. (Self)

Create interdisciplinary and culturally diverse teams to bring new perspectives to a problem: creating an environment that allows members to work collaboratively with different disciplines, knowledge bases and points of view is critical. Strive to include team members that reflect the diversity of the community you will be working in. (Teams)

Explore the cultural, social, political, and economic factors and assumptions that will inform their working collaborations and provide members with awareness of and skills in cultural diversity and the value of inclusion. (Community)

Performance Testing
(adapted from Design Improv, Nathan Waterhouse)
Acting + Evaluating:

Improv can be a fun informative way to work out ideas, visualize concepts, and communicate solutions. It allows teams to empathize, by stepping into the shoes of users. It can reveal how people interact with services, products, and each other on a physical, emotional and intuitive level.

Here are 3 stages of the design process where performance/theater can be useful in the development of interactive systems:

• Supporting the exploration of new ideas.
• Helping to communicate concepts.
• Supporting testing of ideas.

Here is an example of how to use theater/improvisation with your teams.

Performance Testing
Flow: Using an existing scenario test how users interact with products or services. Set the stage/location, decide where everything should be. Assign roles and relationships based on personas and research. If you are testing a scenario, take it in slices. As soon as it starts to break down, the audience must call bug! Iterate the scene, changing the variables as you do. Change relationships the Who, Where, and Why.

Suggestions: Use this with potential users to test the experience of a device or service. Assess and record findings. Performance Testing can be done on the road ,or in the studio. Film the process/performance to capture and evaluate.

Here is some of the feedback we received:

Design Empathy Workshop:
" The workshop illuminated a critical part of the DFA experience and process-the idea of empathy, inclusion, and connection. These concepts are crucial and complex and are often unarticulated. Today's session successfully got us thinking about connection and social dynamics in the way we work in our studio on campus and in communities."

"The exercises were great! I can't wait to do the activities I learned today with fellow DfA members this fall."

"The activities we did today will help our studio respectfully and effectively seek out resources in our community to make projects that solve real human issues

Performance Testing Workshop:
"The workshop helped us visualize the scenarios from the perspective of the potential users and stakeholders."

"Forcing us to step into the simulation of our project showed some of inefficiencies in our designs."

"The persona exercise helped us delve into the spoken and unspoken mindset of our users: their needs,motives and their environments. It was easier to pull back the layers of certain stakeholders. Could more easily get to the core of what they were saying...what they mean."

Personas In the 3rd Person and IxDA

DD+D posted the following question on the Interaction Design Association (IxDA) site.
It has had over 60 replies and 1,918 views.

Here is the question, followed by a link to all the interesting responses.

First-person personas are more engaging, and by mimicking tone patterns, grammar usage and other linguistic characteristics that may be possessed by the persona would result in the ability to communicate more with less writing.

Rarely have I come across a persona written from the first-person perspective. I’m wondering if there are reasons for this discrepancy, or is it strictly due to design history/protocol?

Replies here -
http://www.ixda.org/node/30277#comment-82498