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“Human Factors“ is the science behind QoE, Quality of Experience. This is involves several areas of research that include human perception and performance and the technology and design of any interfaces and processes part of a human-object (or machine) interaction.

“Human factors“, “human engineering” and “human factors engineering” are often used in the U.S. “Ergonomics” is more prevalent in Europe. While the term “Personas” (as a research technique) would appear to be of recent creation (e.g. you might come across reference papers going back to the nineties), the fact is that both marketing and human factors engineering have traditionally leveraged this kind of a tool to better understand the needs and expectations of buyers and users. For instance, from a marketing perspective:

“A persona is essentially a representative profile, which summarizes a key demographic target. It is usually accompanied by a photograph of a representative customer who is given a “real name” and assigned some basic demographic data (such as age, marital status, tangible occupation and income) as well as relevant information pertaining to personal behavior”.**

Advertising professionals create “personas”, “storyboards” and “scripts” which support key messages and communications with customers, helping them visualize and personally relate to the benefits and value of the product or service.

“Personas represent the “real face” of a customer and make it easier to unite groups of people around the customer base. There are usually a number of customer personas for any given project”. **

Speaking of being able to visualize things, the following is an interesting forward looking concept from Nokia based on a storyboard depicting a group of users in a collaborative scenario:

While market analysts study consumer behavior and market segmentation as part of QoE, it is worth highlighting that human factors engineering shares some of the same basic principles to define reference user profiles and the so-called users analysis matrix portraying the relationships between users and product features.Usability studies require a careful analysis of the user profiles, their contexts, and the types of interactions that can take place among players and a given object. Studying personas serves several purposes:

• Enabling the design team to better understand the users’ mindset, motivations, expectations, skills, limitations, and behaviors. Note that this also means accounting for those who, while not being primary users, happen to interact with the object either formally or casually (e.g. delivery and maintenance personnel, hackers, etc.).
• Factoring the learning in the design strategy and setting priorities accordingly.
• Making judgment calls and informed design decisions.
• Undertaking necessary prep-work to initiate ethnographic research, role playing, interviews with lead-users, surrogate user testing, as well as focus groups.

“Personas are becoming a regular staple in many of the development teams we talk to. The method helps teams make a smooth transition between requirements and design, resulting with much cleaner designs“. *

Design pitfall #1: Technological Determinism.

“A common trap is to focus only on technological innovation, but this would be a mistake, since technology changes over time. Predicting new technology five years out will be near impossible”.*

What this means is that there is a need to focus on QoE to create a design vision that is divorced from the underlying technology. As a result designers can explore new areas and innovate in the process. The following video from Nokia focuses on one of the “personas” subject of their forward looking research:

Design pitfall #2: Unable to disambiguate

No doubt that one’s professional experience is a valuable asset, but it can also lead to making design assumptions that might not be shared by users, thus ending up with products that only the designer can handle.

It is not uncommon to meet designers who blame users’ lack of understanding for a design failure. Most often than not, the solution approach would be learning some humility instead.

Rather than thinking of “personas” and “storyboarding” or “storytelling” as fancy exercises, the fact is that they are key to conducting due diligence when working on human factors.

Hope this is of interest. This is the first one of a series of blogs on this subject. In the meantime, please feel free to let me know your insights by posting your comment right below or by email.

References: Personas: Practice and theory by Microsoft’s by John Pruitt and Jonathan Grudin; User profiles (personas) and Tools and techniques by University of Cambridge; (**) The power of personas by Leigh Duncan; Personas, matching a design to the user’s goals by Christine Perfetti; The important benefits of personas and (*) The 3 steps for creating an experience vision by Jared M. Spool. User Interface Conference. November 5-8, 2007. Cambridge, MA.

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Daniel Billinton’s project received an Audi Fundation Award:

Designed for commuters, EVO-Cycle features stilish aluminum alloy frame, dual disc brakets, integrated LED lights and Scotchlite reflectors.

The most interesting feature is a case holder that allows for interchangeable briefcases and wheeled carts, whose design is fully integrated in this concept.

References: Audi Design Foundation.

This blog’s Long Tail:  Contest Driven Innovation: Intel’s Challenge,  Next Gen Prius?, Innovation and cultural differences, BWM & Google, Sci-Fi based scenarios, Innovative mobile phones, Sony’s Flexible OLED.

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Back in September, Intel launched the Intel Core Processor Challenge, assigned a $1M award for the winner of this PC design contest and enabled people to vote online for the ones the like the most.

Designers were challenged to deliver innovative concepts which would contribute to a user experience far different from that of the traditional “big, beige box”. Needless to say that Intel’s requirements for the PCs included using Intel’s Core Duo processors and Vivv technology.

Here is basic stats on the contest and a collage of pictures from Intel’s website:

• 7000 votes
• More than two dozen PC designs
• 19 companies worldwide representing 8 countries
• http://www.intelchallenge.com/

This blog’s Long Tail: Next Gen Prius?, Innovation and cultural differences, BWM & Google, Sci-Fi based scenarios, Innovative mobile phones, Sony’s Flexible OLED.

My most recent blogs.