Boke L Nkoy — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 05:45:14 GMT

I am new to IA. Listening to experts talking about personas makes me think of one thing. Why can’t some forms of ‘psychological tests’ be designed for application during users’ research? To build good personas, we need to collect quantitative and qualitative information. As concerning qualitative analysis (or interviews), what you want is the user to tell his or her frustration about using the website, reasons for that frustration, etc. In most of the cases, it will be embarrassing for the person to let you know his or her own ignorance about use of computers and websites.

In this case, I don’t see how methods such as surveys will help to get at the bottom of this problem. Probably, observing users using the computer may be a useful way, but then, you can only see what he or she is doing; but the mental process of this information search is hard to guess. Of course, observation allows picking up a few clues about usability problems, but still may not yield much in terms of what goes on in the mind of the users.
Someone has to come up with a “psychological test applied to usability’, identify a set of smart questions that could tease out subconscious answers, discriminate a lie from the truth and retrieve what really goes through the user’s mind. Such a test may yield necessary elements to build more realistic personas.

In my view, personas are close to “identikit pictures”. Police officers always build them so as to put a face on their offender. It is amazing that with few details, the officers are able to make a drawing close to the real face. Identikit pictures should held us to understand how to make better personas.

Boke Landu Nkoy
I am studying Information Architecture at the University of Canberra. I am finding all those subjects fascinating. I came from a different background; a bit of statistics and economics. So, I enjoy all those writings; unfortunately, I start to realize that IA, personas, controlled vocabularies, diagrams, content analysis, taxonomy, labeling, etc seem to be new fields of studies where virtually we are still trying to invent the wheel.

Boke L Nkoy — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 16:07:16 GMT

Hi, Michael,

Thank you for having made clarifications on interview strategies. You gave a ‘real thing’ from your experience.

Thank you also for commenting on my previous comment regarding personas. I was too caught up in a whirlwind of activities to say a few kind words in return.

You highlighted a number of relevant issues. My comments are based on four points. Understand that I am only echoing your views with intention to see how you react.

1. Who should be interviewed first?

The top managers provide strategic directions of their site. The low-level staff bring relevant tactical issues. Shall we begin interview with strategic or tactical issues?

My inclination is begin with tactical issues, reflect on them, and then meet the strategists last. This is because strategists have the last word on the project.

2. Resistance to changes

From your articles, ‘acceptance’ of a project is a win-win situation. To win, we have to be “agents of change”. To minimise rejections, I consider three strategies:

(i) a passive solution consists in listening to what they want, and make sure to give it to them while presenting the Strategy Document (SD),
(ii) a middle-ground solution is to listen to what they want, and argue your case in the SD, and
(iii) an aggressive solution is to listen and argue the case during the interview.

I will go for a middle-ground solution. Again, it depends on many other factors such as how functional or dysfunctional is the organisation, resistance to changes, etc. In the case of a dysfunctional organisation, a resistance to changes is a potential factor in the rejection of the proposal. If such a thing ever happens, are we to bow to the stakeholders or fight back?

3. Recording an interview

Unless you are lucky to have an assistant, it may be tricky to speak and take down notes. Wouldn’t a tape recorder be a practical solution? Again, I am apprehensive regarding any reliance on such a method. I assume peoples generally resent it.

5. Strategy Document

Is a Strategy Document a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)?

If really a MoU must be signed off by the two parties, I imagine the difficulties involved. Probably, a contact person has to sign it off. I am trying to understand procedures or protocol for interviews.

Thanks again for the points in your articles.

Boke Landu Nkoy

Boxes and Arrows: Comments by Boke L Nkoy