personas

Designing for end-users you don't have access to

Any practical tips on how to design in a user-centered manner for a part of your user base you just cannot get more than second-hand accounts for?

In addition to second-hand accounts we of course have access to event logs that record user behavior, but this tracking cannot be tied to a this elusive user group with any reliable accuracy (i.e. we know they're there, we just don't know which ones they are).

How often do you revisit and/or update your personas?

I'm curious how often you revisit and/or update personas for long-term use.

Right now, I'm considering making a few revisions to personas that we've created a while back (that was nearly 18 months ago and we newer information we'd like to incorporate) and this got me wondering how other IXDAers approach the persona life cycle.

Do you revisit your personas periodically? If so, how often do you find this to be valuable?

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Adam

Examples of products/sites that used personas

Hello:

It's been a long time since I've come across specific examples of products/websites that were built using personas (the ethnographic variety).  I know there are companies that utilize personas (Microsoft, Canon, etc) but I'm having a tough time tracing it to actual names of products.

Any examples would be much appreciated!

Role or Usage Based Personas

I recently saw an example of personas done from a usage occassion as opposed to being role based - so instead of "Mike - Salesperon" or "Tammy - Student", it was done from the perspective of segmentation of audience based on their usage, "Sam - loyal book buyer" or "Mary - occassional reader".

Is this just really a semantic difference??

Depicting Your Personas

For all you persona creators out there, do you typically use photos of real people/users that you have interviewed for the project, or do you prefer to use stock photography? I'm often hesitant to request peoples permission, as I don't want to make them uncomfortable or potentially overly conscious of the fact that they are under observation.