Designing the Introductory IS Course Using Student Personas: Lessons Learned from Product Design

The introductory information systems course has been a challenge to deliver for business school faculty members. One part of the challenge is to clearly understand the students who will take the class. An extension of user-centered design (UCD) called a persona has been used to gain understanding and develop empathy for target users/consumers of product design efforts. Extending the use beyond product design, personas were used to revise and design the introductory operations and information management class at a major western university. The use of personas led to a number of class innovations including the use of a blog, the selection of practitioner oriented book, and the use of recent students who had completed the class as recitation leaders. Preliminary results have included increased enrollments in advanced elective classes in operations and information management

A Review of the Literature on the Empathy Construct Using Cluster Analysis

Empathy plays a central role in human behavior and is a key aspect of social functioning. The extensive research on the empathy construct in fields such as psychology, social work, and education has revealed many positive aspects of empathy. Through the use of cluster analysis, this research takes a new approach to reviewing the literature on empathy and objectively identifies groups of empathy research. Next, this study relates the information systems (IS) discipline’s focus on empathy research through the projection of IS empathy paragraphs into those clusters, and identifies areas of empathy research that are currently being largely overlooked by the IS field. The use of cluster analysis and projection for conducting a literature review provides researchers with a more objective approach for reviewing relevant literature

The Use of the Delphi Method to Determine the Benefits of the Personas Method – An Approach to Systems Design

A persona represents a group of target users that share common behavioral characteristics. The personas method, an approach to systems design, has been receiving significant attention from practitioners. However, only anecdotal evidence currently exists for the effectiveness of personas. This research-in-progress, a Delphi study of personas experts, attempts to reach consensus on the benefits of incorporating personas into design projects. This study also lays the foundation for future research by identifying variables of interest, and building construct validity through the definitions of items given by the experts. Experimental studies will validate if groups of subjects that are provided with personas design more usable systems than groups that are given data on the target users in a non-persona form. Also, planned case studies will concentrate on studying the use of and effectiveness of personas in the organizational setting

Knowing You, Knowing Who, and Knowing What Counts: A Multi-Generational Conversation

People who have had the most impact on our lives are those who have seen some special trait or character in us and then nurture that special something. Gary Dickson has had that kind of impact on others. Gary also has left us with a discovery framework for survival in academia. Surviving academics must groom themselves for their careers through the use of knowledge that can be turned into action. Knowing yourself and your strengths and weaknesses, your field and its perception by other academics, key players both while in a Ph.D. program and in an academic position, success factors in the job market and on the road to tenure and promotion, your publication outlets, and how you personally react to criticism are all part of your desired knowledge package. But, knowledge is not enough. You must use your information system and knowledge base along with an action plan to reach your goals. Actions including but not limited to a balance in life, turning unstructured tasks into structured ones, and thinking beyond system boundaries all can guide you to be a survivor in academia. This conversation among Gary Dickson\u27s first Ph.D. student, a newly minted Ph.D. who Ken advised, and a current student of Ken\u27s, provides food for thought on building your knowledge base and some guides to actions that will aid your academic career

A Preliminary Examination of Using Personas to Enhance User-Centered Design

Organizations now routinely collect information about the needs of their consumers/users, but this information is not sufficiently utilized. This research investigates how encapsulating the user needs in a persona affects the resulting design decisions. Personas put a face on the target users and create a vivid design target by using a narrative, picture, and name. In our study, we examine whether personas help designers make more effective design decisions. We also focus on the roles of empathy and memory, and investigate whether personas introduce greater empathy into product design. The results suggest that personas lead to more effective designs when empathy for the persona is created. On the other hand, when the user needs are summarized in a tabular format, the participants must rely on memorization of the user information. The implications of the results and how follow-up studies will tackle unanswered questions are explored

“Is More Better?”:Impact of Multiple Photos on Perception of Persona Profiles

In this research, we investigate if and how more photos than a single headshot can heighten the level of information provided by persona profiles. We conduct eye-tracking experiments and qualitative interviews with variations in the photos: a single headshot, a headshot and images of the persona in different contexts, and a headshot with pictures of different people representing key persona attributes. The results show that more contextual photos significantly improve the information end users derive from a persona profile; however, showing images of different people creates confusion and lowers the informativeness. Moreover, we discover that choice of pictures results in various interpretations of the persona that are biased by the end users' experiences and preconceptions. The results imply that persona creators should consider the design power of photos when creating persona profiles

Using personas to improve feature selectivity by facilitating empathy

This paper examines how the target users should be represented to improve the feature selectivity of designers. Specifically, this research investigates the utility of personas, a method for representing user needs through the use of a vivid, fictional character. We examine whether the persona representation helps designers focus their design choices on the needs of the target users without introducing extraneous features. We also test the role of empathy in the effectiveness of personas. In two experimental studies, we find support that a persona representation that facilitates empathy can help designers focus their design inferences on the target users. Taken as a whole, this research presents an initial step toward validating the impact of the personas and identifying factors that influence their utility.First author draf

Why Can't Rodents Vomit? A Comparative Behavioral, Anatomical, and Physiological Study

The vomiting (emetic) reflex is documented in numerous mammalian species, including primates and carnivores, yet laboratory rats and mice appear to lack this response. It is unclear whether these rodents do not vomit because of anatomical constraints (e.g., a relatively long abdominal esophagus) or lack of key neural circuits. Moreover, it is unknown whether laboratory rodents are representative of Rodentia with regards to this reflex. Here we conducted behavioral testing of members of all three major groups of Rodentia; mouse-related (rat, mouse, vole, beaver), Ctenohystrica (guinea pig, nutria), and squirrel-related (mountain beaver) species. Prototypical emetic agents, apomorphine (sc), veratrine (sc), and copper sulfate (ig), failed to produce either retching or vomiting in these species (although other behavioral effects, e.g., locomotion, were noted). These rodents also had anatomical constraints, which could limit the efficiency of vomiting should it be attempted, including reduced muscularity of the diaphragm and stomach geometry that is not well structured for moving contents towards the esophagus compared to species that can vomit (cat, ferret, and musk shrew). Lastly, an in situ brainstem preparation was used to make sensitive measures of mouth, esophagus, and shoulder muscular movements, and phrenic nerve activity-key features of emetic episodes. Laboratory mice and rats failed to display any of the common coordinated actions of these indices after typical emetic stimulation (resiniferatoxin and vagal afferent stimulation) compared to musk shrews. Overall the results suggest that the inability to vomit is a general property of Rodentia and that an absent brainstem neurological component is the most likely cause. The implications of these findings for the utility of rodents as models in the area of emesis research are discussed. © 2013 Horn et al

A Template for Data-Driven Personas:Analyzing 31 Quantitatively Oriented Persona Profiles

Following the proliferation ofpersonified big data and data science algorithms, data-driven user personas (DDPs) are becoming more common in persona design.However, the DDP templates are seemingly diverse and frag-mented, prompting a need for a synthesis of the information included in these personas. Analyzing 31 templates for DDPs, we find that DDPs vary greatly by their information richness, asthe most informative layout hasmore than 300% more information categories than the least informative layout. We also find that graphical complexity and information richness do not necessarily correlate. Fur-thermore, the chosen persona development methodmay carry over to the infor-mation presentation, with quantitative data typically presented as scores, metrics, or tables and qualitative data as text-rich narratives. We did not find one “general template” for DDPs and defining thisis difficultdue to the variety of the outputs of different methods as well as differentinformation needs of the persona users.Following the proliferation ofpersonified big data and data science algorithms, data-driven user personas (DDPs) are becoming more common in persona design.However, the DDP templates are seemingly diverse and frag-mented, prompting a need for a synthesis of the information included in these personas. Analyzing 31 templates for DDPs, we find that DDPs vary greatly by their information richness, asthe most informative layout hasmore than 300% more information categories than the least informative layout. We also find that graphical complexity and information richness do not necessarily correlate. Fur-thermore, the chosen persona development methodmay carry over to the infor-mation presentation, with quantitative data typically presented as scores, metrics, or tables and qualitative data as text-rich narratives. We did not find one “general template” for DDPs and defining thisis difficultdue to the variety of the outputs of different methods as well as differentinformation needs of the persona users

Seed Layers for Wide Band Gap Coevaporated Perovskite Solar Cells CsCl Regulates Band Gap and Reduces Process Variability

Coevaporation, an up scalable deposition technique that allows for conformal coverage of textured industrial silicon bottom cells, is particularly suited for application in perovskite silicon tandem solar cells PSTs . However, research on coevaporated perovskites with an appropriate band gap for PSTs remains limited, with lower efficiency and reproducibility than solution processed films. Here, we present a simple approach using a thin layer of a precursor material, namely, PbI2, PbCl2, CsI, or CsCl, as a seed layer on the hole transporting layer perovskite interface. We find CsCl to be the optimal seed layer for our system. Perovskite single junction cells prepared with CsCl seed layer exhibit 19.6 power conversion efficiency with a band gap of 1.69 eV and improved long term stability. We attribute the observed enhancements to the more precise and consistent incorporation of the organic precursor into the perovskite lattice during the film growth. This work demonstrates that engineering the substrate surface is crucial for achieving well controlled growth of efficient and stable coevaporated wide band gap perovskite solar cell