# Persona-based DataScape Navigation

Summary
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**Background of method**: Personas are used during user centred design as a way of allowing a designer to distance themselves from the design problem and to see the problem through the eyes of others. Often, personas are created based on assumptions of the design team, which could lead to bias and stereotyping. More objective personas might be found from qualitative or quantitative data, collected from and about existing or potential future users. The data-driven persona is essentially a form of data curation to summarise the data to make it easier to access in a design setting. However, the probem here could be that these personas may end up reflecting the more typical users of the system, but fail to capture those who are marginalised - meaning that they remain at the peripherary of the design process.

There are many variants of personas. For example, while the original persona tended to list basic demographics (age, gender, location, occupation) of a target user, along with short paragraphs about their goals, motivations and frustrations, some people have suggested that personas could be even more story-driven. For example, such an approach for building empathy and better understanding when designing towards [sustainable consumers](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/mar.21132?casa_token=FVnCk-StOMsAAAAA%3Adlz1bKMcMDNtlpkanJvHrFOgJFMBmpzQnRFo8NIRbqci4zFMOf95Co28H1BN0R1e5RBh4iW3X7fJAGvo). Personas can also be non-humans, e.g. creatures, a city, a future human with superpowers and so on. Such personas may play an importnat role in empathy building to more-than human concerns.

A persona can be viewed as a concise summary across one or more datasets, with the benefit that it can summarise across both qualitative and quantitative data. A number of personas can be made from the same data, or same types of data, in order to make it easier to view it from different perspectives. This supports a structured navigation across a datascape. This approach may then help to frame additional exploration of the data.

**Why to use it**: personas can be used in situations where it is important to consider alternative viewpoints during a participatory process, for example during ideation of solutions. Personas are easily accessible and so if they are used to summarise research data they can also then be used to communicate the data back to teh community it derives from in order to empower them with the data.

**When to use it**: it can be used when a lot of quantitative and/or qualitative data is available about a problem context and it needs to be summarised.

# **Using personas**

Personas can be presented and used in different ways - however the main commonality is that a group of people who are thinking about and designing solutions for a problem bring the different personas to the forefront of the discussion for the purpose of relfecting on questions such as:
1. How would this problem look from this personas point of view?
2. How would the solution impact this persona?
3. Would this persona buy into this solution?

Description
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This section will introduce different scenarios for using personas. One of them is from a completed project and the rest are from research that is just starting.

# More-than Human personas
SciberPunks have been conceptualised as more-than human future humans with special powers for sensing the environment through data collected about it, either by technological augmentation or evolving special abilities. SciberPunks are created by exploring environmental datasets and using the data to predict possible futures. Participating in the process of creating SciberPunks is intended to build empathy towards the concerns revealed by the data. At the same time, the end results are personas that can be used to help make more sustainable choices.

The following examples have been co-designed during the COVID time with students of Theatrum Oga in Finland, Lahti. Local data and other forms of information were used to inform and inspire the iterative creation of these characters.


1. **Warmonk** is a shaman character who communicates with plants and trees using his staff that he built using the old world technology. The staff keeps his mind and body connected to nature.
2. **Swamp fairy** has a crown to listen to what nature is whispering. With that comes her unique power to turn words into action.
3. **Super woman** belongs to Suomuijat tribe and is interested in understanding the humanmind. She can transform into a tree and can teleport herself from place to place - she’s all over the place. With the headband she can read peoples minds and forecast the future, at least some part of it.
4. **Power Granny** is a very small character who belongs to Suomuijat tribe and is interested in berries. SHe has a butterfly sensor which senses emotions and reacts with flashing red light when there are a lot of negative or non-constructive feelings and golden light when there are positive feelings. She can also analyze very fast if something is false news, manipulation or provocation.
5. **Cloudberry** is able to get data from all the plants in nature as well as the food you are going to eat and that you’ve eaten during the day. She knows which plants are edible and what they’re good for. She also invented a ring so that everyone could get this kind of superpower.

**Further Reading**
[Designing SciberPunks as Future Personas for More than Human Design](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/351427622_Designing_SciberPunks_as_Future_Personas_for_More_than_Human_Design).

# Ethnodramatic persona
An ethnodrama encourages new ways of knowing and learing about ethnographic research data, beyond engaging with written word. In ethnodrama the research data is dramaticised and scripted, often utilising selections from interviews, field notes, diaries and similar.

The aim of the **ethnodramatic persona** is to summarise qualitative and quantiative research data into personas that can be used in solving wicked problems and especially to bring in a diversity of views into a participatory process and to give a voice to those on the peripherary.

An ethnodramatic persona is one that has been developed at least partially through an ethnographic process and which is communicated using ethnodrama. Thus a key aspect of the ethnodramatic persona is how the research findings are framed within a dramatic script and how this is then communicated.

An example process for creating ethnodramatic personas is:
1. collect data to inform the creation of one or more personas. This could be through interviews and surveys within the community of interest.
2. Perform qualititative analyses (such as thematic analysis) on the qualitative data and quantitative analysis on quantitiative data.
3. Record data into a persona template: which attributes are most important?
4. Frame the persona within a dramatic script

Ethnodramatic personas are being created for use within case studies, each of which is focused on a particular transition policies. The case studies are assembling various staekholders to discuss whether the policies are fair for all, or if some people will be negatively impacted from the experience. Since often it is marginalised people who are most likely to be affected, it is important to include the views of different marginalised groups into the process. Therefore, the aim of the personas being created for these cases is to represent marginalised groups, especially that may not be represented during discussions, and to use this as a basis for participants to either think from those points of views, think about whether or not they relate to these people but to start to see the problems through their eyes, or to identify new personas that should be included.

These personas will be communicated via interactive videos, through which participants can navigate between different personas and contexts.


Mockup of possible ethnographic persona for designing a just transition, communicated through an interactive data video

# Regional personas
A persona can present more than just a person or animal, it could be used to summarise information collected about a region.

The persona might characterise a region along the following dimensions:
* demographic trends
* economic trends
* social and political characteristics and trends
* ecological characteristics

A set of regional personas may help to think about a problem from an infrastructure perspective rather than a human/individual perspective and think of what needs to change in a place, rather than thinking how humans need to change.

Regional personas are being created for use within a project with suburban youth as part of a toolkit for helping youth to imagine the suburbs of the future. The role of the regional persona in this case is to help the youth to think beyond the area where they live and undertsand some of the underlying reasons why marginalisation may occur and how this could be solved in the future. The following shows a mockup of the type of information contained in regional personas. In addition, this regional persona could reflect 'hopes' and 'fears'. Based on these personas, the participants would start to imagine the human personas that inhabit these spaces, what they like and dislike, how they spend their free timex, what are their hopes and fears - first in the past, next in the present day and finally in the future.


# Personas as a lens for data exploration
Open data portals often provide access to a vast array of information. Sometimes the datasets are presented in the form of an interactive visualisation, often in the form of a map-based interface. The interface gives users complete freedom to explore the different data sets, to zoom in and out of them, look at different facets, or time periods. Howver, with such choice it is often difficult for a user to know where to start, even if they have a question and a data need in mind. Personas may be a useful lens for initiating a particular view of data, which can then support a more incremental and guided exploration across the data. The initial review should somehow match to the interests or needs of the persona. People may choose a persona that is close to them, or they might explore those who are different, depending on their own needs from the data.

Persona based data exploration will be explored as part of a project that is developing community energy interfaces. The personas will be found by clustering data from a multi-national survey - and possibly other sources. The personas will reflect different types of energy citizen, who they are, where they live, what their circumstances are, how open they are to adopting new technolgies, what types of information they like to engage with and so on. The interface provides access to energy and energy-related data, such as efficiency of buildings, potential for solar PV and so forth - with quite technical detail. Depending on the selected persona, a user might in one instance see easily - via a map interface - a comparison between solar yield and roof size, to help them think if they might also have a house suitable for having solar panels. They might widen the search then to include additional attributes, such as cost. Or, alternatively, they might be given access to a pamphlet on energy saving tips, or links to a social media group advocating for grants for low income households. This approach may also consider 'community personas' representing different energy communities.

**Method originators:** Annika Wolff, Anne Pässilä, Jon Lautala, Lasse Kantola, Tanvir Hasan, Ajesh Kumar

###### tags: `datascape toolkit` `toolkit` `method`