Understanding Users

Personas, scenarios and user stories

Towards User Personas

& Storytelling
We can’t ask users to be with
us all the time, thus we make
user models.
 Persona
• Describes (your app’s) imaginative users archetypes.

• Is based on the real research and observation.

• Shows user goals and their behavior patterns

• Helps to crack “what” and “why” questions

• Primary, secondary, supplemental, non-persona
Persona
• Used as an aid to help express, discuss and
validate design questions and decisions, e.g.

• Would the persona (“Bob”) use this?

• Is this logical?

• Does this make sense to this persona?

• Is it fun / exiting / motivating... ?

• Bob would not like this, because....
 Sources
Primary Secondary

Contextual inquiry;
Personal know-how

Talking to people directly,
Stakeholders

Observing their behaviour
Online discussions

Domain experts

Informed guesses

Feedback

Surveys
*Bonus
• Talk to people who a different
from you and what you know
already

• Look for reoccurring issues and
trends, language (lingo), surprises...

• Acknowledge your biases and be
open-minded
 Persona documentation
• Helps to communicate persona to other stakeholders

• A document might include e.g.

• background info: age, gender, occupation

• mapping, such as technical skills

• a short description of an activity, that is related to the
current context or problem settings and frustrations

• goals
A business card.
Background Bio

Name, (age), (role), occupation, education
Photo(s)
Description

E.g. use environment or context, where the problem occurs
and current solutions and frustrations.

Goals
Mapping

• What are the user’s end goals?
E.g. computer
skills, necessity vs
• 2-4 end goals and 0-1 life goals is enough 
 fun, quality vs
for this workshop price.

Example template, yours can look different!

Petter Tamm

44, botanic garden worker, father of two children

As a lead gardener, Petter is responsible in ordering

nutritions and specific soil for the plants for the
city’s botanic garden. Currently he has to do 

bi-weekly orders over the phone from his office,
calling manufacturers one by one. Reads reviews to
find best...
Goals

• Wants to manage bulk orderings more efficiently
quality price

• Is looking for quality reviews about new products

Example template, yours can look different!

 Before moving on…
define “what” of your project

What need/goal/expectation does it serve?

Scenarios
Scenarios
• Stories that help understand interactions

• A cheap way to illustrate design solution 

from user’s (persona’s) point of view

• Tell user’s goals, motivations and actions

“What should this product do?”

“How would user behave in this context?”

“What if...?”
 Scenarios
• without your solution present-based
Scope of work

• Focus is set on current practices that illustrate

‘state of the art’ and the problem context

• with your solution future-based
• Focus on how problems could be addressed
(without diving into details and jargon).
Context-based scenario

It’s Friday afternoon. Petter opens his desktop

computer at the botanic center’s office. He wants

to be quickly done with the extra flower soil orders.

!
Petter decides to order the same combination of
products as four weeks ago, but in smaller quantity. He
does not order nutritions this time.

!
Petter is not interested in staying at the office long. As
soon as the order is done, he leaves work to pick his
daughter from school.
 Story background, settings Goal “extra orders, quick”

It’s Friday afternoon. Petter opens his desktop

computer at the botanic center’s office. He wants

to be quickly done with the extra flower soil orders.

!
Petter decides to order the same combination of
products as four weeks ago, but in smaller quantity. He
does not order nutritions this time.

!
Petter is not interested in staying at the office long. As
soon as the order is done, he leaves work to pick his
daughter from school.
High level actions 

(e.g. re-ordering x with changes, not ordering y.) Motivation: efficiency
• In what settings will the product be used?

• Is the persona frequently interrupted?

• With what other products will it be used?

• What primary activities does the persona need to

perform to meet her goals?


• What is the expected end result of using the product?

Use Cases/
User Stories
Use Cases
A step-by-step, often
detailed description of Use
Com
p
product’s behaviour, Case onents:
, Acto

r s, St
which helps the user eps
(and other actors) to
achieve a result.

Success Condition: what is considered a successful end to the use case

Failure Condition: what is considered a failed end to the use case

 Simple example

Use Cases
Use Case – Ordering extra soil. 

Actor – Petter / botanic garden worker

Steps / Basic course of events

1. Check what has been ordered before.

2. Renew a previous order.

3. Modify the order to suit current situation.

4. Place the order.

Alternative course of events

In step 1. check favorite orders.
 User Stories
As a
A simple, easily readable (
I wan persona
t t o /r o le)

description of a specific so I c
an be do (wha
user need.
nefit t),

(how
).

As a botanic garden worker

I want to order extra soil.

Original model popularized by Mike Cohn,

Screenshot: ScrumDesk
User Stories
Epic / Saga user stories

User stories with clear conditions of satisfactions

Theme user stories Condition details

Theme user stories
Theme user stories
 As a gardener
Epic / Saga
I want to order soil.
user story
As a gardener

Example of a conditions of
I want to quickly order extra soil. satisfactions

... to see previous offers.

– Condition: similar to the new offer
Themed user stories
... to modify the order.

... to submit a new order.

etc.
 Resources
• Cooper, Alan, Reimann, R & Cronin, D. (2007) About Face 3: The essentials of interaction design. Wiley; ISBN:
0470084111

• Hinton, Andrew. Personas and the Role of Documentation. (2008) http://boxesandarrows.com/personas-and-

the-role-of-design-documentation/

• Accessibility in User-Centered Design http://www.uiaccess.com/accessucd/personas.html

• Hassenzahl, M. (2008). User Experience (UX): Towards and experiential perspective on product quality. http://
www.researchgate.net/publication/
238472807_User_experience_(UX)_Towards_an_experiential_perspective_on_product_quality/file/
60b7d51bf4873231da.pdf

• What research methods could I use to create personas? http://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/21891/what-

research-methods-can-i-use-to-create-personas

• Personas http://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/Persona+Categories

• Mike Cohn. http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/articles?tag=user%20stories

• Stellman & Green. Building better software. http://www.stellman-greene.com/2009/05/03/requirements-101-

user-stories-vs-use-cases/

• User Story map http://winnipegagilist.blogspot.com/2012/03/how-to-create-user-story-map.html

 Images

• Boat https://www.flickr.com/photos/time-to-look/14551961151/sizes/l

• Restaurant https://www.flickr.com/photos/en321/9908577253/sizes/l

• Girls with ice-creams https://www.flickr.com/photos/pbaitor/4998329309/sizes/l

• Woman in hospital bed https://www.flickr.com/photos/uhduh/12242998/sizes/l

• Girl with a phone https://www.flickr.com/photos/brandoncwarren/2952179726/sizes/l

• Men on a bench https://www.flickr.com/photos/scottrsmith/6194527237/sizes/l

• Woman at ATM https://www.flickr.com/photos/betsssssy/435300495/sizes/l

• User Case Map http://www.batimes.com/articles/user-stories-and-use-cases-dont-use-both.html