“There’s Something About Noura”: Exploring Think-Aloud Reasonings for Users' Persona Choice in a Design Task

Stakeholders like designers use personas to learn about users. After persona development, stakeholders are usually presented with a persona set. However, there is little research on how stakeholders select a persona from a persona set. A think-aloud analysis with 37 stakeholders who were asked to select a persona for a content design task reveals that persona selection is influenced by comparative, non-comparative, and subjective elements. Persona choice is often made with task compatibility in mind: interests, professions, and education were important contextual factors in our focal task. Storifying is commonly applied by stakeholders, reflecting personas’ narrative nature. The persona’s picture is often evoked, in addition to nationality and name, though demographics do not play a decisive role. Stakeholders refer to a host of persona attributes when explicating their persona choice. Overall, reasonings for persona choice are multifaceted and individualistic, as we might expect given the information-richness of personas.