Who is it that you build a web site for, or a web application, or a piece of software? Who is it that will use it? Can stepping into their shoes help you build something better?

It never hurts to get another perspective when you are working on a site, or application, or software project. Or, to have a keen insight into how others might view and use your efforts.

One topic that we often have fun with in the usability part of the Cre8asite Forums is that of Personas - fictional characters that are created to aid in the design, implementation, and testing of a project.

The good folks at infodesign have a great link to a Microsoft research document titled Personas: Practice and Theory (PDF) which gives a wonderful look at the historical use and development of the persona process at One Microsoft Way, in Redmond, Washington.

So, how did the persona process make a difference?

There seems to have been many positives in their efforts, from the use of personas to help focus and write help documentation, to an increased alertness of how people will use the software, and how they might implement other Microsoft products into their use of Windows and MSN Explorer.

Their primary lesson learned is that “their greatest value is in providing a shared basis for communication.”

It’s one of the statements early on that might hold the most value for someone else who is thinking of also using personas in their efforts, because it supplies some insight into potential hurdles to overcome. These are the four problems they experienced in their early attempts at personal building:

1. The characters were not believable; either they were obviously designed by committee (not based on data) or the relationship to data was not clear.
2. The characters were not communicated well. Often the main communication method was a resume-like document blown up to poster size and posted around the hallways.
3. There was no real understanding about how to use the characters. In particular, there was typically nothing that spoke to all disciplines or all stages of the development cycle.
4. The projects were often grass-roots efforts with little or no high-level support (such as people resources for creating and promoting Personas, budget for posters or other materials to make the Personas visible, orencouragement from team leaders: “thou shalt use these characters”).

The paper goes into some detail on how each of those issues was addressed, and upon the value of the persona approach to their efforts. It’s highly recommended.