Re: Creating personas for WAI site redesign

Hi Michael, Ginger, and all

No problem at all if people don't want to participate, completely OK (and
by the way, none of the questions are required.)  We are only offering the
opportunity to help us understand more about the real people who might use
the new site.  The creation of personas as a way to guide a design process
is a long standing practice in the usability community. The point is to use
personal data from real people to create a fictional profile that kind of
lives and breathes to give designers a sense of the actual people who will
use the site.  Here is brief bit of background. An introduction to personas
and how to create them
<http://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/personas.html>.

Thanks to those who were willing to help and spread the word. Usability
research shows that the more accurately we can draw personas, making them
feel like real people based on actual data, the more likely the design will
meet human needs.

Of course, during the design, we will also be asking for user feedback from
real people, but we will also use the personas to ask ourselves - how would
this design decision meet the need of this imaginary person, drawn for data
collected from a broad spectrum of the web community.

But by all means feel perfectly free to ignore this whole request and enjoy
other pursuits!

Thanks all,
Sharron



On Tue, Jun 14, 2016 at 1:54 AM, Michiel Bijl <michiel@agosto.nl> wrote:

> Sorry, but what does gender have to do with this? I see that questions
> aren’t mandatory—which isn’t clear from the site itself—so I can skip it,
> but that is an unacceptable question in such a survey.
>
> Times when it is acceptable to ask for gender:
>
> 1. Never
> 2. A dating site maybe?
>
> —Michiel
>
> On 13 Jun 2016, at 22:49, Sharron Rush <srush@knowbility.org> wrote:
>
> Greetings all,
>
> The EOWG has created a Task Force to re-design the WAI web site. Our first
> challenge is understanding who we are building this for.  If you would like
> to contribute your data to the construction of a few personas that will
> guide our effort, please take this (sorry rather long) survey.
>
> https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/T28B59P
>
> As important and maybe even more important is to collect data from web
> professionals who do not yet participate in WAI and who may be unaware of
> web accessibility and the WAI guidelines and supports.  To that end, please
> spread the word about the survey to people who may not be accessibility
> aware.
>
> ...and please let folks know as well that there is a drawing for a $100
> gift card for anyone who completes the survey and wants to leave contact
> information.
>
> Thanks for your help.
>
> Onward!
>
> Sharron Rush
> EOWG co-chair,
> participant in redesign TF
>
>
>


-- 
Sharron Rush | Executive Director | Knowbility.org | @knowbility
*Equal access to technology for people with disabilities*