Category: UX

Personas for business software – a gimmick or sustainable added value?

“Personas are just start-up knick-knacks, and for business software just a gimmick!” I’m sure many product developers have heard this before. I certainly have. But what is the truth behind the criticism that personas offer relevant added value for consumer products and are just creative add-ons for business software?

What are personas anyway?

Personas are fictitious people who represent typical representatives of a specific target group. They give product developers, customers and stakeholders an idea of who uses the product. In addition to a photo and name, personas typically include information on age, profession, free-time activities, family status and curriculum vitae, as well as typical needs and fears.

Personas in the context of business software

However, how do I deal with this as a product developer when my target group is primarily not people with individual needs and ideas, but with concrete professional challenges? For example, whether digital asset manager Diana Asmussen likes to play computers in her free time or go on vacation with her dogs is of no interest to product development. Diana steps into the spotlight with her professional needs as a digital asset manager and her requirements for an IoT system. When designing business software, employees should be addressed who want to complete their tasks efficiently and act in their roles and company processes.

CONTACT’s Personas

We at CONTACT therefore decided to create personas based on their roles and associated tasks within a fictitious company. We obtained input from our internal subject matter experts and customer interviews. Each persona has a task description and information on how to use CONTACT Elements.

Exemplary representation of the personas and team memberships of a fictitious customer

To be more specific, this means…

The holistic view of user needs provides valuable added value for product development – from knowledge building to quality assurance.

Personas make users more tangible and help new and long-standing product developers to get to know our target groups better.

By answering questions like: Who works with the 3D Cockpit? What does a user do in variant management? Or with whom does a CAE engineer interact? they know exactly for whom they are developing and can serve requirements in a more targeted manner. As sample users in concepts, demos and review systems, including all the rights they would have in a real environment, personas also ensure that work during development and quality assurance is user-centric.

But personas also have a high added value outside of product development. In presentations and in consulting, we use them to vividly depict scenarios, to build up understanding, and for identification.

So my answer to the initial question of whether personas are a gimmick or offer sustainable added value is clear: Personas are a central element in developing the best possible software for the user. They clarify needs, help to prioritize requirements, and promote a sustainable build-up of knowledge about the target groups company-wide.

Digital accessibility for everyone

Modern software should be without barriers. But what kind of barriers can software have and for whom? And how can software companies eliminate them? The general understanding of accessible software mostly refers to the fact that people with disabilities or other physical limitations can use it well. For example, software designed in this way reduces the risk of confusion between color representations on the monitor in the case of red-green vision impairment, or makes it easier for people with Parkinson’s disease to use the mouse. This is an important requirement that modern software should fulfill.

Thinking the approach that all users should not have any barriers in the way of operation consistently further, it quickly becomes apparent that everyone experiences limitations to a greater or lesser extent when using a computer. For example, even for users with normal vision, elements of the program interface can be difficult to recognize on a bad screen, the environment can be too noisy to concentrate, or the mouse cannot be operated due to a current hand injury. Accessibility therefore addresses everyone!

Accessibility as a standard

For consumer software, reducing or eliminating operating barriers has long been standard practice. For example, I can increase the font size on my iPhone or have texts read aloud to me. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) were established early on for the World Wide Web. As an international standard, they provide developers with guidelines for making websites accessible to as many people as possible. They have become the de facto standard for accessible user experiences and are even referenced in legislation on equality for people with disabilities.

Remove barriers – release forces

For me, following these standards does not only mean fulfilling my responsibility as a product designer. It also simply means a guaranteed improvement in product quality – for all users. After all, it’s not just users with special visual impairments who benefit from high-contrast displays or keyboard controls, to name just two examples. Entrepreneur and accessibility advocate Debrah Ruh put it succinctly: “Accessibility allows us to tap into everyone’s potential.” I think that fits perfectly with our claim at CONTACT: Energizing great minds.

Consistent UX in distributed product development

Enterprise software development is largely distributed. Solutions are built on a platform, but developed separately from it; the assembly of modules and their adaptation to customer requirements takes place downstream, in other locations. This means different teams, different departments, different companies are building something that is first a product for the customer.

Users expect software that is homogeneous , that reuses operating patterns, and that provides a consistent user experience. This is a major challenge when different departments, some of them distributed around the world, are involved and everyone participating in product development brings their own perspective to the table. As described in my previous article, a basic awareness of the topic of UX throughout the company is already a good prerequisite. How can we build on this and provide even more targeted support in terms of end-to-end UX?

UX influencing is key

Craig Villamor’s presentation “Resilient Enterprise Design” had a profound impact on my view of this challenge. Craig is a Design Director at Google and was previously responsible for the design of Salesforces software. In his presentation at the 2017 Enterprise UX Conference, he uses the four pillars of Design Principles, Platform Mindset, Design Systems, and Influencing in Product Development to show how successful UX design of resilient enterprise applications can succeed.

I would like to focus here on the last pillar, influencing. What is meant here is influencing all the players involved in product creation – at CONTACT, we call them “creators”. This support is also a central aspect of the UX strategy at CONTACT. But what does this look like in concrete terms?

Making it easy to do the right thing

It is not always a good idea to keep the design framework as large as possible: Too many design options can lead to uncontrolled growth and unnecessary inconsistencies. For example, fixed layouts for pages or control elements specify recognizable operating patterns. The manageable design options should then be explained as contextually as possible, in structures with which creators work directly – for example, right in the configuration interface. Such aids can be speaking titles and short descriptions for given layout areas, for example semantic sections in a context menu. In this way, creators can make the right decisions directly without having to go through the design documentation.

Support with the right resources

Good design documentation is also relevant: Design guidelines are the framework for design decisions in application development and configuration. It is important that they are not textbook-raised, but close to the creators’ problems. At best, the documentation for each UI component includes guidance on which use cases it is appropriate for – and which it is not. Examples show how the UI component is used correctly, for example in interaction with other UI elements.

Leading by example

Creators love examples in general: What can you do with this kit? What do possible solutions look like? CONTACT’s products offer an ever-growing number of specialized applications (Task Manager, Xbom Manager, Scheduler, Variant Management, etc.) that build on the InSync Design System and provide Creators with templates or inspiration for new solutions.

So if we provide distributed product stakeholders with guidance for design decisions, support with good application design resources and create lighthouse solutions for orientation, they can more easily create compelling products with a consistent user experience.