Product Description
If you design and develop products for people, this book is for you. The Persona Lifecycle addresses the “how” of creating effective personas and using those personas to design products that people love. It doesn’t just describe the value of personas; it offers detailed techniques and tools related to planning, creating, communicating, and using personas to create great product designs. Moreover, it provides rich examples, samples, and illustrations to imitate and m… More >>
The Persona Lifecycle: Keeping People in Mind Throughout Product Design
Tags: Design, Keeping, Lifecycle, Mind, People, Persona, Product, Throughout
#1 by Daniel Mayes on March 1, 2010 - 12:14 pm
I have a background in experimental psychology and human-computer interaction. So, when my organization tasked my team with creating the first set of personas we’d be using, I wanted to make sure I had done my homework to get the job done right. This book was critical to our success with our first personas effort and I’d say we would not have hit the mark without the advice from John and Tamara. Not only does the book vividly describe the persona creation process from start to finish, it also does a nice job of illustrating projects where personas might be useful, those where it wouldn’t, and gives great examples of how to use the personas once created. While the thoroughness of the book’s treatment of the personas creation and use topic is enough to make it worth every penny you’ll spend on it, the authors dug deeper into their experiences to ensure the book had some nice “extras”. Specifically, they gave many examples throughout the book to aid in learning about each topic. They also provide the reader with many different options for each step in the personas lifecycle so the reader can customize their personas effort. Of all the books I’ve read both in and outside of my field, this is the book I’d recommend the highest and is by far the one that has been the most practical to have on my shelf. It’s in such high demand on our team that we have 4 copies floating around so people can continue to reference it as they work on their various efforts. If you are thinking of learning more about personas or starting your own personas effort, buy this book.
Rating: 5 / 5
#2 by Anonymous on March 1, 2010 - 2:47 pm
I met Dr. Pruit and spoke with him. He knows what he is talking about and he can really explain this personal subject really well. And he is a nice person too. Great book to read for anyone.
Rating: 5 / 5
#3 by E. Henlein on March 1, 2010 - 3:01 pm
I recently conducted a persona workshop and I used the Persona Lifecycle book as my guide through the process. The workshop was a smashing success. The book gave useful and pertinent “how to” tips as well as best practice guidelines to follow when conducting a workshop.
This book should be on every user experience professional’s shelf. It is the new persona bible. Within a few days of reading the book, I felt like I had a very solid grasp on personas and their importance to a website project. I am grateful that this book was published in time for my workshop.
Rating: 5 / 5
#4 by Todd Warfel on March 1, 2010 - 4:57 pm
(I’ve been doing personas since 2000, right after reading Cooper’s Inmates are Running the Asylum).
I had great expectations for this book, but was sadly disappointed. There are a few good “models” in this book, like the fact that it uses a single case study carried through the book to continually try and tie things together. However, the book is a very difficult 700pp read. They’ve thrown in everything including the kitchen sink in this book, which is not a good thing.
They have stories from the field, handy details, bright ideas, the G4K case study – all woven throughout the writing of the book. It breaks to book up too much and makes it less useful.
There’s an entire chapter on reality maps. They don’t have anything to do with personas, really. They’re a great tool, kind of like the Task Analysis grid [...], but I wouldn’t put that in a personas book.
They should have created some personas for the book to guide their design and limit the amount of writing they did. The writing style isn’t engaging. The interior design of the book is confusing. They have a number of different elements threaded through the book, which dissects the pages up too much, making it more difficult to read.
Personally, they could have just stuck with the chapters from their contributing authors and had a better book.
This was very disheartening for me, as I was really looking forward to this book. However, of the 300+ books on my shelf, this is one that I simply could not recommend.
[...]. The authors really missed the boat here. This is not a how-to book. It is very thorough, too thorough. They seemed to take everything related to personas and try and pack it into one book. The execution simply missed the mark.
Rating: 2 / 5
#5 by Jessica Scheibach on March 1, 2010 - 5:45 pm
I had the pleasure of getting a chance to review an early draft of the chapter on Reality and Design Mapping. My new team was getting ready to tackle significant new initiatives and had spent a lot of time arguing about where to start, and why. Within one week, we came up with two personas and conducted two design mapping sessions to walk through each customer experience. For the first time, the team really came together and got a ton of ideas out on the table. It was an effective collaboration tool that was easy to learn, and gave us actionable output. Based on our two sessions, and a few follow-up conversations, we’ve built a prioritized feature set and are moving forward. I highly recommend the book, even if you only read this one chapter.
Rating: 5 / 5