Communicating about users in ICTD

User-created persona

“…A literature review focusing on the benefits commonly attributed to persona reveals ten vital targets widely credited to this artefact: (1) to create a grounded understanding of the targeted set of users; (2) provide early design needs and requirements from the users; (3) introduce and/or reinforce design thinking all throughout [33]; (4) encourage a shared vision of users' needs for efficiency [23]; (5) provide focus upon users' goals, requirements and traits [27]; (6) depict dimensions of ecosystems where users function [18]; Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored.…”

“…Persona functions as a surrogate of a group of users with common goals, attitudes and traits when interacting with a technological product or a service [27]. Persona current widespread use and support among designers is in sharp contrast with the paucity in research [26] and experiential usage [17] that provokes scepticism among many researchers and practitioners in using persona in design decision-making [33].…”

Reconceptualising Personas Across Cultures: Archetypes, Stereotypes & Collective Personas in Pastoral Namibia

“…Persona also lacks an agreement about its definition, creation and its deployment [2], as well as it lacks on empirical research outside technology dominant settings [6]. Ultimately persona misses involving users in its creation and final representation [16].…”

“…Persona was originated by Cooper [1] as a representative of a specific group of users sharing commonalities when interacting with technology products or services [2]. Persona thus endeavours to inform design on the needs, requirements and aspirations of each of these groups of users regarding technologies or technological innovations.…”

“…The core objective of the larger project is to discern cross-cultural representations of the persona artefact, and as such to attempt answering the following questions: (1)how do different Namibian populaces take-on, understand and co-create persona artefacts capable of representing their technological needs, requirements and desires; (2)what cultural assumptions may emerge regarding typical creations and depictions of personas and how these differ or mimic usual values, guidelines and concords, and (3)whether the persona co-design process, be it undertaken with users, may depict legit persona proxies relevant to the design of useful and gratifying technologies.…”