Present-ing the user: constructing the persona

During the last few years personas has become an established design technique within the IT-design field. Using personas has proven itself as a valuable approach for designers to switch between a developer's perspective and a user's perspectivein the design process. The technique is claimed to help designers in keeping a clear focus and shaping a consistent user-interface by making ‘the user’ present in the design work. In this paper we report on a number of projects where we have elaborated on the persona approach for collaborative design. With the goalof creating ‘user presence’ in the design process, we have developed an approach building on a combination of ethnographic exploration, participatory inquiry, and collaborative design. This paper carries two interrelated points: the grounding of personasin existing practice; and the notion that ‘the user’ is created as an ongoing process throughout the design work.