Printer Personas and Storyboarding
Step into a user's shoes. Understand an individual's experience with an interface.
In this project, I will be choosing a public user interface to observe. I will observe and interview 3 users before creating two personas and a storyboard to better understand those users and their interactions with the interface. The purpose and goal of this project is to understand how interfaces can be best designed for a specific subset of users.
Interface
I chose to observe people's interactions with the printer in Barus and Holley. There are two printers within the same vicinity, and it is not immediately clear which printer prints in color and which in black and white. There is a simple interface to use the printers, but there are not detailed instructions for potentially new users.
As seen in the image above, the interface is relatively simple to use. A user will swipe their card to log into their account, and use the mouse to click one button to release a print queue. I am not observing the computer interface to upload a document, only the printer interface to release a document from the queue.
Observations
After observing three users, I noticed the following:
- Person A swiped their ID, and nothing was released from the printer. They opened and used their laptop for around 3 minutes before swiping their ID a second time and receiving a print.
- Person A spent around 5 minutes fiddling with buttons on the printer before they realized they had to swipe their ID to release a print job. Persons B and C immediately swiped their ID cards upon approaching the printer.
- Person B picked up their printed document, and looked confused and dissatisfied.
- Person B only printed one page, while Persons A and C received multiple pages from the printer. However, Person A individually clicked the “print” button next to each document, while Person C used the “print all” button at the bottom of the screen.
- None of the users touched the keyboard. Person A used the "logout" button, while Persons B and C left the vacinity before the computer automatically logged out of their accounts.
I then interviewed with each of the three users to understand their experience with the interface and obtained the following responses:
- What are you trying to print? Is this a necessary item? Two people were printing necessary items- a mandatory reading and resume for the career fair, while one person was printing a decorative piece for their room.
- How frequently do you use this printer? Person C uses the printer around once a week, while persons A and B have experience with printing at Brown, but have never used the printer I was observing.
- What would you have done if the printer did not work? Both people who were printing mandatory documents noted they would find a printer in a different building, while Person C noted they would have returned home empty handed.
- Are you in a rush? Both students printing mandatory documents were in a rush to immediately use/hand in their printed documents. Finding a printer in a different building would have caused a time delay for both users.
- How effective was the printer in fulfilling your goals? Person B’s goal was not fulfilled because they wanted their document printed in color. Person C noted the resolution of their document is not as clear as that of a color printer.
Personas
To create a realistic representation of the individuals I observed and interviewed, I created two personas using four-quadrant empathy maps. The empathy maps help provide a visual for what the users think, feel, say, and do.
The first persona I constructed is Procrastinating Pamela. Pamela is a busy college student taking five courses and involved in multiple extracurricular clubs. She has a tendency to leave assignments for the last minute.
Pamela uses the printer frequently to print her readings and homework assignments. Her main problem with the current interface is that it does not support adjusting the number of copies needed. Additionally, Pamela finds the interface for the printer to be slow, and the printing process is longer than she prefers.
Pamela represents the busy students using the printers across Brown. Many students frequently use the printer, but find it inconvenient to submit multiple documents or print multiple copies. These students are looking for convenient and efficient ways to print necessary documents.
The second persona I constructed is Artsy Abe. Abe is a first year Brown-RISD Dual Degree student who just moved to campus, and is looking to fill his room with decor.
Abe has never used the printers at Brown before. His main problem with the interface is that there are no directions for submitting documents to the printer. The home screen on the monitor does not immediately suggest the printer is associated with the monitor, which causes Abe to struggle with using the printer.
Abe represents the new students on campus who are unfamiliar with the printer. These users are not necessarily printing with urgency, but rather using the printer as a device to express creativity. People like Abe are looking for quality prints, rather than a fast printing speed.
Storyboard
I detailed Artsy Abe's user journey from start to end using a storyboard. The following storyboard provides detail and context about Abe's background and experinece with the printer's interface.
Conclusion
This project gave me experience in observing users' interaction with an interface. I learned how to document observations and ask detailed, yet unbiased questions. Creating personas and a storyboard gave me the chance to deeply understand a specific subset of users and their hardships with the printing interface at Brown.