Monthly Archives: April 2010  Agile Personas  One of the most
consistent patterns I see among those integrating UX and Agile
is a business-as-usual approach to Personas, i.e. continuing to
create them largely in the same way as in a traditional
waterfall practice.  Doing so, in my opinion, is a mistake, and
reflects a lack of understanding both of the purpose behind
Personas and the thinking underlying an Agile practice.
Personas are research artifacts based on real people and real
research data that humanize and capture key attributes about
archetypal users.  What are their goals?  Preferences?  How do
they work? And so on.  They serve both to inform design
decisions and, maybe even more importantly, increase designer
empathy.  In other words, they are a reminder that these are
real people.  So what’s wrong with that?  From a user experience
design perspective, what could be more important than to
understand your users?  Yes, that is all good and well. The
problem with Personas is that they can become an ex