Building Contextual Personas through Scenario Planning (D4D Boston 2016)

Jesse Emmanuel Rosario

Building Contextual Personas through Scenario Planning

Design4Drupal Boston | July 22-24, 2016

•  User Experience Specialist, Analy9cal Engine Interac9ve, Inc. (Toronto, ON, Canada)

About Me

@jemrosario #D4DBoston

SLIDES HERE:

http://bit.ly/1VtUQHJ


F A C T:

Personas are great!


From Freepik (http://www.freepik.com/free-vector/variety-of-human-avatars_766615.htm)

user research

Ellen•  45yearsold•  Motheroftwo•  Proudtechadopter•  Paysforhercoffee

exclusivelyfromhermobiledevice


•  Personas became

“laughable caricatures packed full of stereotypical details based on nothing more than marke9ng data” - Jaime Levy, UX Strategy (2015)

But something happened along the way…


RESULT:

Personas became one big “meh…”

#PersonaProblems


P R O B L E MTraditional personas

lack the product context needed to

build digital products that users want and generate business.

How do we solve this?


CONTEXTUAL PERSONAS

Behavioral Insights

+ Product Context


“Context” •  When we talk about ‘contextual’ in contextual personas,

we’re referring to to the condi9ons that give rise to a product idea:

ProblemSpace

Compe00veLandscape

Problem/Solu0onFit


“Context”

•  GOAL: Understand the “job-to-be-done” (Clayton Christensen, The Innovator’s Solu=on, 2003)

–  Pain Point: Situa9ons where customers want some problem solved

–  The Thing They’ll Hire: …and they’re looking to hire something that fixes that problem

ProblemSpace

Compe00veLandscape

Problem/Solu0onFit


Scenario Planning A strategic foresight method that lets you take an educated peek at some futures your product or service might play out.

DISCLAIMER: The scenario planning process outlined in this presentation is adapted from Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless’ Liberating Structures (specifically LS # 30: “Critical Uncertainties”).

So how do you tease out that job-to-be-done?


Scenario Planning, broadly…

Source:

IDENTIFYING TRENDS

Problem space User Research

Customer Development

BUILDING SCENARIOS

Scenario Matrix

IMPLICATIONS FOR STRATEGY

Consider scenarios’ implications for strategy


Try It!

How do we iden9fy the safest bike routes in the city way before we ride?


•  Big-9cket + Uncertain factors surrounding your users.

Find your Critical Uncertainties

What is the most hard-hitting/crucial factor about

your users that could affect the

product/service’s creation?

What is the most uncertain/

volatile factor surrounding your

users?


•  How do we find that?

– User research (user interviews, primary and secondary research, analy9cs research, surveys, ethnography, contextual inquiry, etc.)

– Synthesize the raw data to iden9fy trends •  Affinity mapping

•  Iden9fy recurring themes (put a heading on them).

•  The Five Whys (a.k.a. root cause analysis)



Don’t be that guy or girl!


•  Iden9fy the cri9cal and the uncertain.


CRITICAL: Planning tendency

(i.e. the need to plan a ride out way in

advance)

UNCERTAIN: Road

confidence


EXTREME PLANNER

NON-PLANNER

NERVOUS RIDER

CONFIDENT RIDER

CRITICAL: Planning tendency (e.g. the need to

plan a ride out way in advance)

UNCERTAIN: Road

confidence

Mr/MsProac0ve

TheTeamCaptain

TheNervousNovice

TheDare-devil


EXTREME PLANNER

NON-PLANNER

NERVOUS RIDER

CONFIDENT RIDER

Mr/MsProac0ve

TheTeamCaptain

TheNervousNovice

TheDare-devil

RESULT:

User types

•  Personas•  UserStory

Mapping•  Customer

JourneyMaps,etc.


Somecommonques0ons,concerns,objec0ons,etc.(a.k.a. YA RLY…)

Nice process, but…

Aren’t traditional personas enough?

ANSWER: Half and half. Tradi9onal personas are great with user behaviours, but they always don’t tell you why these behaviours maber to you and your business (at least explicitly). It ocen struggles to make the connec9on

with business strategy, which is key to achieving research/strategy buy-in!

(Spare me from this scenario mumbo-jumbo, really…)


Product Development Today = High Stakes Game

Photo from: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1018549119

Problem-Solu6on Fit (Pain Points +

Job to be Done)

Business Strategy (through

Value Innova9on)

If our goal is to build digital products that our users and stakeholders will love,

we’ve got to make Problem-Solution Fit and Business Strategy sing in unison.

How do you do that? STRATEGIC PLANNING.


The Research and Strategy Chasm •  REALITY:

There is a chasm between good, quality research and corporate/organiza9onal strategy.


The Research and Strategy Chasm •  REALITY:

There is a chasm between good, quality research and corporate/organiza9onal strategy.

Howdowecrossthechasm?


FourLessonsIHaveLearned:Connec0ngResearchtoStrategy(a.k.a. the leapfrog…)


-1- Always do a reality check about

your product and mission whenever you can. Ask yourself, “What’s the problem we’re really

solving and the job-to-be done?” every time you’re carried away.


-2-

Align. Align. Align.


-3-

Communicate with everyone. Clarity goes a long way.


-4-

Track success. Revisit your strategy.


•  Contextual Personas = Behavioral Insights + Product Context.

•  Glimpses poten9al usage scenarios given user goals, mo9va9ons, and product/business context.

•  Driven by user research, this 9me with a view towards the cri9cal and the uncertain.

•  Covers much more ground cri9cal to achieving problem-solu9on fit (and product-market fit, eventually).

•  Funnels nicely into agile user stories, user story mapping, customer journey maps, etc.

In Conclusion


•  Successful product crea9on is a masterful dance between the business and us (designers and developers) where to goal is to create digital products that users love.

•  When in doubt, come back to the customer.

•  Pin research to strategy.

•  “Sell outcomes, not (just) products”

Remember…

Ash Ketchum chooses a Pokémon from Professor Oak’s lab.

Jesse Emmanuel Rosario

Building Contextual Personas through Scenario Planning