Forwarded from Lourdes Cueva Chacón: Come join a discussion that explores the benefits and unpacks the mystery behind personas. Personas are a type of user profile that has emerged as a best practice in web and software design, but about which little concrete information is available. What exactly is a persona? When are they useful, and when are they not? How do you create them? Specifically, how do you make sure they're representative of actual users, and not just an exercise in creative writing? And once you have personas, what can you actually do with them? Robert Barlow-Busch from Quarry Integrated Communications will answer these questions by sharing experiences from a variety of client projects conducted over the past 5 years. This talk will be a special presentation for TriUPA and IxDA members and friends since Robert is giving a full-day persona design workshop on June 8th. (Read more details in our next post). In advance of this event, you can read about one of the case studies Robert will discuss and download some example personas from Quarry's website (examples). About Quarry and the presenter: Robert is the Practice Director of Interaction Design at Quarry Integrated Communications, a marketing and design agency. Although its Interaction Design and Usability group is based in Waterloo, Ontario, Quarry has just relocated its US headquarters to Durham and looks forward to building some ties with the professional community in RTP. Robert and Quarry are long-time members of the UPA and frequent presenters at the annual conference and at chapter meetings, speaking on topics such as the basics of usability testing, personas, and how marketing and usability could work more closely together (yes, it's true: they can!). Robert has about 15 years experience across a variety of industries in Canada, the US, and Europe. After a particularly frustrating client meeting in 2001, in which nobody could agree who the customer was, Robert introduced personas to Quarry's design process. The team's work since then caught the attention of Forrester Research, who has identified Quarry as source of expertise in their report Where to Get Help With Persona Projects. Also, look for an invited chapter by Robert in The Persona Lifecycle, the first book to give an in-depth look at the practice of personas. When: Wednesday, June 7th at 6:00pm Where: Lulu Press Inc 800 Aviation Pkwy Suite 300 Morrisville, NC 27560 Map to Event Starting with this event, the coordinators are recommending places for participants to meet before and after the event. Before, in case you need to have some food in order to survive such a long day, and after, in case you want to keep chatting on the topic or just have a drink with your TriUPA fellows. So here our recommendations: Before event: (Map to) Village Deli Morrisville, just 2 blocks from Lulu. Feel free to bring your food to Lulu. After hours venue: (Map to) El Meson Mexican Restaurant