There was a talk and exercise about personas at the KDE World Conference 2005. Kuroo was used as an example application. The exercise was well attended and quite successful. Have a look at the slides and results at the KDE wiki!

Personas Development

1. Target User Group
   1. User Chararcteristics
   2. Task Analysis
2. The personas of Kuroo
   1. Primary Persona: Antje
      1. Characteristics
      2. Goals
   2. Secondary Persona: Pete
      1. Characteristics
      2. Goals

Target User Group

User Chararcteristics

• Age: 16-25; 26-40
• Job: Students, fewer non-technical jobs
• Job/Task experience: One group: already another distro (graphical installation/updating) - want simplicity. Other group: use emerge on cli, want better overview
• Education: Mainly College education
• Computer literacy: Medium to high
• Work environment: At home, broadband, desktop computer
• Training time: They like to play around, have the time. Or they want quick results (in one session)
• Frequency of use: Updating: daily at most, more likely weekly. Installing: more seldom, a few times a month
• Gender: More men, fewer women

Task Analysis

• Goals
  • secure system -> updating
  • install new applications
• How are they doing it now?
  • either using distro with graphical installation/updating (suse, mandrake,...),
  • using windows or
  • using gentoo on commandline (emerge tool)

The personas of Kuroo

Primary Persona: Antje

Characteristics

• Gender female
• Age: 31
• Job: working on geographic dissertation
• Task experience: used windows nt, wants to get rid of it -> colleague installed gentoo on her machine
• Antje has a flat of her own in Amsterdam where she lives and works
• Environment: at home

Goals

1. End Goals
   Antje needs applications for her dissertation. So finding and installing programs is important to her. She wants to keep her PC secure and stable, too.
2. Experience Goals
   Antje doesn't want to be frustrated. She wants quick results, no frills. Antje wants to feel safe.

Secondary Persona: Pete

Characteristics

• Gender: male
• Age: 22
• Job: student, finding excuse why he can't finish his college assigment
• Task Experience: using gentoo on cli, wants better overview
• Lives in Ohio, at home with parents
• Environment: at home

Goals

1. End Goals
   Pete updates pretty often. So keeping the system secure and up to date is important to him. He tries out new apps regularly and sees what's installed.
2. Experience Goals
   Pete wants to feel smart. He plays around and explores.