Then the Picture Comes in Your Mind of What You Have Seen on TV: A Study of Personas Descriptions and Use

When working with the method personas there might be a difference between designers knowing people similar to the personas or designers not knowing any. An ongoing study reveals that when designers have knowledge of the users from site visits and user tests, they form a broader understanding of the persona where the persona is perceived and referred to as a bricolage of multiple persons, defined by roles, but spoken of as a single person. If they do not have this kind of knowledge, they draw on other sources to perceive the persona, in this case a stereotypical fictional character from a TV-soap. An earlier study showed how the creating of a stereotype prevented the designers to adapt new information that did not fit the stereotype. This paper investigates what kind of information triggers the inflexible categorization of functional typification and looks at the role of informal discussions.