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Personas and Behavioral Theories: a Case Study Using Self Methods and Theories CHI 2017, May 6–11, 2017, Denver, CO, USA Personas and Behavioral Theories: A Case Study Using Self-Determination Theory to Construct Overweight Personas Arne Jansen1, Maarten Van Mechelen1, Karin Slegers Meaningful Interactions Lab (mintlab, KU Leuven – imec) Parkstraat 45 box 3605, 3000 Leuven, Belgium [email protected] ABSTRACT communicate a broad range of qualitative and quantitative Personas are a widely used tool to keep real users in mind, information about the users, such as insights into their while avoiding stereotypical thinking in the design process. behaviors, goals and the context of use, and bring focus in Yet, creating personas can be challenging. Starting from this data collection [5,19,21]. Moreover, personas can align Cooper’s approach for constructing personas, this paper a project team and help to make better-informed decisions details how behavioral theory can contribute substantially on design requirements that match users’ needs and goals. to the development of personas. We describe a case study in Because personas are realistic and human-like, they help which Self-Determination Theory (SDT) is used to develop the team empathize with the users [19,20,21]. Another five distinctive personas for the design of a digital coach for important benefit of personas1 is that they filter out sustainable weight loss. We show how behavioral theories designers’ and stakeholders’ incorrect assumptions about such as SDT can help to understand what genuinely drives the users, whose motivations and behaviors might differ and motivates users to sustainably change their behavior. In from their own [19,20]. our study, we used SDT to prepare and analyze interviews with envisioned users of the coach and to create complex, Empathizing with the users and filtering out incorrect yet engaging and highly realistic personas that make users’ assumptions is also important during the persona basic psychological needs explicit. The paper ends with a construction phase. Yet, for user groups or activities that critical reflection on the use of behavioral theories to create are far removed from the designers’ or stakeholders’ own personas, discussing both challenges and strengths. world of experience, this can be challenging. To better understand users’ motivation to change their behavior and Author Keywords lead a healthy lifestyle, and avoid incorrect assumptions Personas; Design Methods; Behavioral Theories; Self- about users, we turned to Self-Determination Theory Determination Theory; Obesity (SDT). This theory helped us to create engaging personas ACM Classification Keywords for the design of a sustainable weight loss coaching app. H.5.m. Information interfaces and presentation (e.g., HCI): Traditionally, the construction of personas does not rely on User-centered design; Evaluation/Methodology. existing behavior theories. In this paper we discuss existing approaches on constructing personas, our specific use case and why SDT is relevant here. Next we describe the INTRODUCTION persona construction process we followed, before Personas are specific, concrete and engaging descriptions of presenting the resulting personas and discussing the added hypothetical users that represent broad cross-sections of value of using SDT and behavioral theories in general. real users [2,5,18]. They can be deployed throughout a design project to ensure designers and other stakeholders keep focusing on the users. Personas are mainly used in the APPROACHES ON CONSTRUCTING PERSONAS first phases of the design process, e.g., during ideation Personas are typically generated from data gathered on sessions. In these early phases, personas are used to (potential) users. In practice, however, there is not one universal method for constructing personas. Some basic Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for principles do recur in different methods. A first step usually personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are is to gather data about users’ needs regarding the product or not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for service that is being designed. Next, these data are analyzed components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. to find patterns of similar needs across individual users, Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to which are then turned into a set of distinct personas, each post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission with their own narrative [11,16]. Cooper, Reimann, & and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]. CHI 2017, May 06-11, 2017, Denver, CO, USA Cronin [5], who first introduced a method for constructing © 2017 ACM. ISBN 978-1-4503-4655-9/17/05…$15.00 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3026003 1 Both authors contributed equally to this paper. 2127 Methods and Theories CHI 2017, May 6–11, 2017, Denver, CO, USA personas as a design tool, say that persona narratives should This paper shows how an existing theory on human include personas’ skills, motivations and the goals they behavior, namely SDT, can be used as a framework during want to accomplish in relation to the product or service that the creation of personas, making this process more a design team wants to create. Cooper et al. rely on systematic. Incorporating domain-specific knowledge on qualitative data, mainly coming from interviews and sustainable behavior change in the design process may observations [5,11,18]. Others, like McGinn & Kotamraju increase the success for persuasive technologies, such as a [15], advocate a purely quantitative approach to persona coaching application for sustainable weight loss. development making use of statistically significant user- To our knowledge, theoretical frameworks have only been data (e.g., from surveys). Quantitative personas are seen as used for the creation of child personas, but we believe that a way to overcome subjectivity both in interpretation and this is a valuable approach when designing for adults as segmentation of available data [16,17,25]. A third approach well. Our approach is unique in that we relied on behavioral combines qualitative and quantitative data to avoid theory throughout the entire persona construction process: subjectivity but at the same time create rich persona to develop the interview protocol, during the coding process descriptions [17]. For Adlin & Pruitt, for example, these and in the visual representation of the personas. descriptions should combine qualitative data with information on market share and influence [2,18]. Antle’s child-based personas too, could be placed in this CASE STUDY WITH SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY last category, but she proposes to also make use of a We present a project that served as a case study for using theoretical framework to reduce designers’ assumptions SDT when constructing personas. The overall aim of the about children [3]. Designers can have (incorrect) project was to develop a digital coach to combat obesity. In assumptions about user groups, especially if those groups what follows, we describe in-depth how we constructed the are further removed from their own world of experience personas within this project [31]. The project was such as children. Antle states that, starting from designers’ multidisciplinary in nature, involving researchers from the assumptions, interviews or participatory design techniques fields of human-computer interaction, medical imaging, do not sufficiently capture children’s needs, attitudes and (clinical) nutrition and physical activity, sports and health, behaviors. Moreover, those needs, attitudes and behaviors as well as companies providing e-health services and a are hard to interpret for designers who are often not trained supermarket company. This consortium developed a in child development. If designers are not aware, for smartphone application supporting people in achieving example, that children under the age of 10 are not capable sustainable weight loss through physical activity and a of abstract thinking, bias may occur. Therefore, she created healthy diet. The societal relevance of such applications is a theoretical framework to support data collection, pattern high, because excess body weight and obesity form a health identification and information synthesis to support the threat that is increasing worldwide. According to the World construction of engaging, complex and realistic personas Health Organization obesity has more than doubled in the for children. For this framework, she relied on established last 25 years, with 39% of adults worldwide experiencing child development theories, such as Attachment Theory, overweight in 2014 - of which 13% were obese [30]. Cognitive Social Learning Theory, and Piaget’s Stages of Losing excess body weight in a sustainable manner is Cognitive Development. difficult for many people. It involves acquiring a combination of a healthy eating pattern, a sufficient level of Not only when creating child personas, designers’ physical activity and the motivation to change habits assumptions may interfere with capturing and interpreting accordingly and sustain them [23,28,29]. needs, attitudes and behaviors. Antle hints at the fact that using a theoretical framework may also be useful “when The way motivation works to change and maintain such designing experiences for adults” [3]. In human-computer habits is
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