The magic of ‘personas’

Want to find out what users want? Try to get in their head. One way to do that: create a persona.

Alison Heard explains what a persona is (‘…[A] hypothetical-user archetype, developed for interface design projects and used for guiding decisions about visual design, functionality, navigation, and content’), and why creating one is a good thing.

Jesse James Garrett also discusses personas in his book The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web. Garrett offers an overview of the user-centered design process. It’s a great book for those who are new to planning and organizing large-scale sites.