ReadingTree Personas and Goals

Goal Development

Using interview responses and personal observations, we brainstormed about twenty goals related to reading and successful book selection. We then combined redundant, expanded similar, and eliminated edge goals, selecting seven as central. Our central motivations for kids to select and read a particular book were: pursuit of reading as a favorite activity, avoiding reading because one doesn't enjoy it, reading books because other kids are reading the same books, reading to gather information about a specific topic, reading to escape reality, being an overachiever and therefore reading to please authority figures, and having difficulty reading because one is learning disabled.

Persona Development

The first step in persona development was to familiarize ourselves with potential users, using interview responses from users and proxies. We discussed the interview responses, paying particular attention to how kids chose which books to read, whose book suggestions they valued, what kids did after school and what about a particular book attracted a kid.

Once we had an idea of the specific needs of some potential users we developed personas one at a time for each of the goals. We wrote a goal on the blackboard and developed a detailed character directly from the goal, with specifics suggested by interview responses and personal experience. When ideas slowed we took traits from a Character Development Questions list and added details about an unexplored area of the persona. Once we felt we had a clear image of the persona, we moved onto the next goal and began again.

Justification

From our seven central goals we developed four personas extensively, and determined that the other three were edge cases and their needs could be served by functionality designed for the developed personas. The selected edge cases were reading to escape reality, being an overachiever and therefore reading to please authority figures, and having difficulty reading because one is learning disabled.

We had trouble envisioning a kid whose primary reason for reading is to escape reality. Even after brainstorming we could not think of any central traits, nor clearly differentiate it from a child who reads the same amount solely because she enjoys it.

We envisioned the kid who is an overachiever and therefore reading to please authority figures as sharing traits with both Ayisha and Julio. Like Ayisha this kid is familiar with a library and reads a lot, and her dedication to finding a specific title or topic area mirrors Julio's.

We envisioned the kid who has difficulty reading because one is learning disabled as sharing goals with Danny. Danny's avoidance of reading comes from not being good at it, so an interface that he can read and understand would address the needs of other slow readers.

Personas and Goals

AYISHA -- DANNY -- JENNY -- JULIO

AYISHA (African-American girl, age 8)

Ayisha reads all the time-it's her favorite activity to do when she has free time and nothing else planned. She reads mostly fiction and biographies. She so much enjoys reading that when there's nothing else around, she will even read the backs of cereal boxes. Ayisha goes to the library once a week with her mother and her older sister. She doesn't use computers much, other than in class or at the library and she has no experience with e-mail, chat or Instant Messaging.

Ayisha is of average height and weight, with medium length hair, which she usually wears in three thick pigtails segmented with blue and white plastic balls. She prefers to wear casual clothes (jeans and T-shirts mostly).

Ayisha lives with her two parents in Walnut Creek, in a house with a big yard-there are a couple of excellent places in the yard where she likes to hang out and read. Ayisha attends a medium-sized school and rides the bus there every day. After school on Thursdays, she has piano lessons but other than that, her after-school time is not very structured. She enjoys riding her bike or playing outside when her friends are around (she has 1 best friend and a few other friends to do things with.) Ayisha also has a two-year-old cocker spaniel.

PRACTICAL GOAL:
- Find books she enjoys
- Find lots of books that she hasn't already read

PERSONAL GOAL:
- Not feel stupid when using the computer

DANNY (Caucasian boy, age 11)

Danny has trouble reading-although he is in the fifth grade, he reads on a second or third grade level. As a result, he dislikes reading and tries to avoid it, even when it's required for school. He goes to the library once a week with his class but does not speak to the librarian. When required to pick out a book to read for class, he browses the shelves by himself and tries to pick out books that have as few pages as possible, large fonts, and lots of pictures. Sometimes he gets in trouble when he refuses to do class assignments or clowns around. Danny only uses a computer when he is at his friends' houses - they play video games. There are no computers in his classroom and only 2 in the library.

Danny is tall for his age and wiry from playing sports. He has short spiky reddish blond hair and lots of freckles. He wears his baseball cap almost all of the time.

Danny's mom died when he was young so he lives just with his Dad who has been a foreman at the same warehouse for 20 years. He has 1 brother (age 17), 1 sister (age 15), and a little brother (age 8). The family lives in a fairly large house in a rural area. He attends a large regional school, riding a bus 1 hour each way to get there. After school during baseball season, he plays shortstop in Little League where he has taken on the role of coach's helper. He's a talented baseball player and also very good at helping other kids when they're having trouble. Danny has friends from Little League but no one he'd call a "best friend"; he is closest to his siblings. When he's finished with his after-school chores, he likes to play with his friends or brothers outdoors, especially in the creek behind his house. After dinner, Danny usually watches TV for a couple of hours. The family has 2 dogs and one very independent cat.

PRACTICAL GOALS:
- Find books to satisfy school requirements as quickly as possible

PERSONAL GOALS:
- Not feel stupid
- Not let other people know about his troubles with reading

JENNY(Caucasian girl, age 10)

Jenny just loves her friends -- making plans with them, hanging around with them, going to the mall with them, talking to them on the phone, talking to them in class, having sleepovers � her favorite activity is just being with her friends. She has two best-best friends, Sara and Brittany who go to the same upper-middle-class private school she does, and the three of them do everything together, even when two of them are in a spat. After school, when they're not involved in structured activities like ballet and piano lessons, or soccer practice, they like to play in the house making music videos, or in one of each other's rooms, crank calling boys or reading fashion magazines like Teen or Cosmo Girl. This keeps them up on the latest teen fashion and gossip -- they enjoy dressing and looking cool, and spend their allowances on clothing and accessories like cutesy butterfly hair clips. They are the closest friends in a larger group of about a dozen girls, who participate in many of the same activities and frequently get together for sleepovers. Their mothers often carpool to soccer practices and weekend games. Jenny's mom in particular does a lot of driving; since Jenny is an only child, she doesn't have to compete for rides with a sibling.

Jenny is smart and does well in school, but it's not one of her priorities. Sometimes she gets in trouble for talking with or passing notes to her friends in class. She likes reading, but it often gets pushed aside for more social activities that she can do with others, especially her two best friends. When a book is popular, however, like Harry Potter, she definitely wants to be among the first to read it. When the latest book came out, she preordered it from Borders, and her mom went down at midnight on the release day to pick it up. She carried it around with her conspicuously until she finished it. So did her two friends.

About three weeks ago, she and her friends became vegetarians. She has a hamster in her room that is somewhat neglected. There's a computer in the downstairs office in her house, which she sometimes uses for school work, but mostly to IM her friends.

PRACTICAL GOAL:
- Find books for schools
- Find what's brand new or forthcoming

PERSONAL GOAL:
- Spend time with friends
- Do something that friends think is cool

JULIO (Filipino boy, age 7),

Julio is a slightly pudgy, bilingual boy who attends a math/science magnet school in Philadelphia. He's a smart kid, very good at math and science, but not so good at English and spelling. He's very interested in science and nature, and learning about animals and How Things Work. His dad is a doctor and not home very often; his pretty mother is college-educated but stays at home with Julio, his 9-year-old older sister and his 3-year-old younger sister. Julio desperately wishes he could have a pet but his little sister is allergic. They live around the corner from a park, in a townhouse in northeast Philly with a small backyard and a short paved driveway in front. He and his two best friends Felipe and Carlos spend their free time out in the yard or in the park, playing with dirt and leaves and messing with ants. On rainy days they stay inside and play video games. Once every two weeks he goes to a Cub Scout meeting after school, but usually he comes straight home.

Julio reads at grade level but he doesn't really enjoy it. However, he reads a fair amount of nonfiction to find out about topics he's interested in. He'll also go online to find out information more quickly, especially when he's interested in a new topic. His family has a computer at home, which he uses to research his new interests; he's very comfortable with using the computer and knows a lot about how they work.

His mother takes Julio to the library when he asks to go. Sometimes this will be several days in a row and sometimes he may take a week or two off. He's not afraid to ask for help, but he doesn't want to be told what to get -- he just wants to find out where to go, asking, for example, "Where is your section on ants?"

PRACTICAL GOAL:
- Find books for information as quickly as possible

PERSONAL GOAL:
- Be independent in finding the information he wants to know

APPENDIX

Interviews (Please note that interviews will open up in a new window)

Child 1
Child 2

Parent
Nanny

Teacher 1
Teacher 2

Librarian