# Defining Personas
A persona is a fictional character that represents a larger group of individual users that utilize your product in a specific way way that meets their goals.
*When based on user research, personas support user-centered design throughout a project’s lifecycle by making characteristics of key user segments more salient.**

## 🏅 Goals + Objectives
Personas should be used to help determine how to create user flows, determine relevant features and create interactions Stereotypes perpetuate surface-level understanding of users. Behaviors can be highly context-dependent.*
* Create relaible and realistic representations of your key audience
* Create an unbiased approach to validating assumptions and hypotheses towards our users
* Identify pain points and areas of improvement or automation
* Guide actionable stories and features for development

## 📍 Participant and Interview Details
Below is a working sample of detailst to note about each interview. This can be utilized at the top of each interview script.
### Interview Details

| Interview Details | Details |
| ------------------------------ | ------- |
| Project | |
| Interview Date + Time | |
| Scheduled Interview Duration | |
| Facilitator | |
| Note Taker | |
| Spectators on the call/meeting | |

### Participant Details
Participant | Details |
| --------------------- | ------- |
| Name | |
| Role/Title/Rank | |
| Contact information | |

## 📄 Interview Script
*The script and questions below is a **guide** to conducting individual interviews that help frame your project's persona. Please select prompts that best help you and your team in your current stage of research and process. We reccommend saving a copy in MS Word to record responses.*

* Ask primarily open-ended questions (questions that cannot be answered with a simple 'yes' or 'no')
* When possible, ask participants to show more than tell
* When possible, ask for specific stories, especially about anything you cannot observe
* Don’t be afraid to ask seemingly naïve questions either because you’ll want to find out as much as possible. (Naïve questions are never stupid; they show an eagerness to learn, and they establish a non-authoritative tone in the interview, which is great for building rapport with participants.)*

### 🚨 Introductions + Disclosures (2 minutes)
Hello, my name is **Your Name** and I am a **your Role** and we are conducting user research on behalf of **Project Name** to better understand the needs and challeneges of our users. By participating, you will help us improve the experience and quality of our products so that you are able to perform your job more efficiently.

Joining me is, ***note taker/others names*** to observe and take notes. With your permission, I would like to record this meeting ****start recording***. This session will be no more than **x minutes**. Also, just a friendly reminder that this session is **unclassified.**

All of your answers are valid, there are no right or wrong responses. We did not design your current **workflows/products/system** so anything you say won't offend us. In fact, the more you are able to share candidly, the more we can better understand how to help you and those that share the same goals and frustrations. Our goal today is to simply get to know you, understand your role and what it is you do. Don't hold back.

Any questions before we get started?

### Overview

| Question | Response |
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------- |
| What is your role? | |
| What are three to four adjectives that describe yourself? | |
| Tell us a bit about your background and what you do in your role | |
| Give us the elevator pitch to your job | |
| How long have you been in your role/at this capacity? | |
| What are some of your responsibilities? | |
| Tell us about your team. Do you supervise anyone? Who do you report to? | |
| How has COVID impacted your role and company? | |

### Domain Knowledge + Environment

| Question | Response |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------- | -------- |
| What are some of the skills or qualifications required to do your job? | |
| How do you stay up to date with the latest information (training, certification, required training, news, etc) | |
| Tell us about your work environment and set up? (Do you commute, work remote, a hybrid?) | |
| How has your role and responsibilities change since you've joined this effort? | |
| What software/programs do you use daily/frequently to complete your day tasks? Which of those are mandated? Are there others you think should be used instead but are not allowed? | |

### Goals, Attitudes + Motivations

| Question | Response |
| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------- |
| What motivates you in your job? (Rewards, incentives, promotions) | |
| What's the most rewarding part? Most challenging? | |
| How do you measure success in your role? | |
| What are the goals that you have with this project/application/software? | |
| What are your professional goals? | |
| How do you plan on achieving those goals? | |
| If you could add, remove, change anything about your role/job what would it be and why? | |

### Process

| Question | Response |
| -------------------- | ------------------ |
| What are some of the tasks you need to complete? | |
| What tasks are important to your success? | |
| What takes up the most amount of time? | |
| What's your typical workday like? | |
| Could you walk us through what that looks like? Could you take us through your current process? | |

### Pain Points + Challenges
| Question | Response |
| --------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------- |
| What are the challenges and frustrations in regards to your role/job? | |
| What are your current workarounds? How long does this take? | |
| What are some of your biggest non-work related challenges and frustrations? | |

### Wrap Up
| Question | Response |
| ----------------------------------------------------------------- | -------- |
| Is there anything we missed?| |
| Any questions we can answer?| |

### Closing (1 minute)
Thank you for your time and participation. This information is super helpful and valuable. As for next steps, we will take your responses to shape our personas and quality of our product.
* *Provide next steps and actions taken to users*
* *Stop recording session + save*

## 🤓 Debrief, Takeaways + Synthesis
Debrief after interviews as much as possible. Use the following to help reflect and guide synthesis and findings
* Takeaways + Findings
* Memorable Quotes
* Disclosures
* Bugs, if applicable
* What they said vs what they did, if applicable
* Action items

### 📝 Updating Persona Templates
Compiled information and research can be synthesized into persona templates to guide features, worfklows and have perspective a high level overview of who your users are. Please save the template as a copy. If you need other formats, contact the UX Design Team

View the templates below:
* [**Figma Persona Templates**](https://www.figma.com/file/ID7WstIUAXSlMqu82owcZE/Personas?node-id=0%3A1)

### 🙋 Ask These Questions to Determine Effectiveness*
1. Does the persona provide enough depth to understand how a user would behave in a specific situation within a given context?
2. Does the persona include or exclude groups that could be affected by the problem?
3. Is the team able to feel genuine empathy for the user based on the persona?
4. Does this persona reflect accessibility and/or disabilities

## ✅ Checklists

### Prepping for the Interview
- [ ] 📝 Create script
- [ ] ⏱ Estimate and appoint time to different sections of the script
- [ ] 📧Send outreach emails
- [ ] ✏️ Schedule time for interview
- [ ] ✏️ Schedule time for a dry run of the interview and adjust time as needed

### Before for the Interview
- [ ] 📧 Send touchbase email
- [ ] 💻 If remote, ensure a strong internet connection, have backup/call-in
- [ ] 💤 Silence notifications
- [ ] 🎙 Make sure mic and video are working

### After the Interview
- [ ] 💾 Make sure the session is saved
- [ ] ⏪ Reset program for next participant
- [ ] 🙏 Thank participant for their time
- [ ] 📧 Administer post-sesion survey, if applicable
- [ ] 📧 Send thank you email
- [ ] 📝 Refine and update current personas, if applicable

## 📧 Email Templates
The following emails are templates you may utilize and modify to your project.

### 📧 Outreach Email
Good **Morning/Afternoon** **Receipient(s),***

My name is **Your Name(s)** and we're conducting a series of individual interview on behalf of the Raft UX team to better understand our users, and their general work experiences and expertise. Doing so allows us optimize and enhance the experience of **product**.

We would be grateful to schedule a **in person/on site/virtual** session with you based on your availability **for/during** **time/date range**. This interview should take no more than **x minutes**.

Please don't hesitate to let us know if you have any questions. We look forward to hearing from you.

Very Respectfully,
**Your Name/Team**

### 📧 Pre-Session Email
*To be sent out, at earliest the week of the scheduled interview and at the latest, the day before.*

Good **Morning/Afternoon** **Receipient(s)***

We are looking forward to our **unclassified** interview session **tomorrow/on date**.

This session will be open ended and a chance for us to better understand you, your experiences and current role with **product**. We'll have questions ready to go and welcome you to share your candid and honest responses. No preparation is required on your end.

With your consent, we will be recording the call for note taking purposes. Our session will be online and we may be screensharing. The meeting info is pasted below for your convenience.

***If applicable: If you have any Mural/Figma/Interactive platforms you want participants to engage with, share the test/playground version in this email to ensure that they are familiar with it.****

Please don't hesitate to let us know if you have any questions. We look forward to hearing from you.

Very Respectfully,
**Your Name/Team**

****Paste meeting info, if applicable.***

### 📧 Thank you Email
Good **Morning/Afternoon** **Receipient(s),***

On behalf of the UX team, we would thank to sincerely thank you for your time and allowing us to interview you. Your feedback helps us to better understand our users and how we can make our products more efficient to help you do your job better. As mentioned in our session, we will be ***insert action items*** and will share with you ***when they are ready/date***.

If you have 2 minutes to spare, please let us know how we did by taking this anonymous survey. Your feedback will help us to better craft future interviews. **Post session survey here, if applicable.**

Please don't hesitate to let us know if you have any questions. We look forward to hearing from you.

Very Respectfully,
**Your Name/Team**

---
###### * Sources
* [Nielson Norman Group](https://www.nngroup.com/articles/persona/)
* [Smash magazine](https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/08/a-closer-look-at-personas-part-2/)
* [UX Booth Article: Rethinking User Persona](https://www.uxbooth.com/articles/rethinking-user-personas/ )