A Life of Their Own: Museum Visitor Personas Penetrating the Design Lifecycle of a Mobile Experience
Sets of "personas" representing archetypical visitors of two very different museums, the Acropolis Museum in Greece and Cité de l'espace in France, were defined and described as part of a multitude of user-centered design methods used to better understand the needs of visitors and develop for them a personalized mobile storytelling experience. Here we reflect on the role and impact that these personas have had, not only on the design process but also as a mechanism to support the story authors and to bootstrap personalization of experiences. We conclude with a discussion of research challenges inherent in the integration of personas directly into systems intended to support the personalization of experiences.