Understanding culturally distant end-users through intermediary-derived personas
Fritz Meissner, Edwin Blake · 2011
In this paper we present the use of a persona creation process for gathering information from intermediaries for information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) projects. Our approach represents a departure from traditional persona use in that it does not organise pre-existing data about potential users, but is itself a data gathering process. We present a case study of our use of the process on an ICT4D project, during which time we observed the combined benefits of using personas and of working with a non-governmental organisation (NGO) intermediary materialise. We attribute these outcomes to our persona creation workshops. Information which the NGO furnished regarding sensitive personal circumstances typical of our end users greatly improved our understanding of our users. This information would likely not have come to light had we interviewed the users ourselves, which we believe demonstrates the validity of relying on intermediary information for persona creation rather than first-hand information.