Data-Driven Personas for Enhanced User Understanding: Combining Empathy with Rationality for Better Insights to Analytics

Data-driven personas are transforming the way organizations understand their users by combining traditional persona insights with the power of digital analytics. This approach introduces a new layer of precision, enabling businesses to develop a deeper understanding of their audiences in real-time, fostering empathy alongside data-driven decision-making. Traditional personas, which have been utilized in fields such…… Continue reading Data-Driven Personas for Enhanced User Understanding: Combining Empathy with Rationality for Better Insights to Analytics

The Choice of a Persona: An Inductive Analysis of Why Stakeholders Choose a Given Persona for a Design Task

Although personas have been applied for two decades, little is known about why a designer chooses a specific persona for a given design task. This question matters because if designers prefer one persona over another, then the needs and attributes of that persona would be favored in the design process, resulting in possible “blind spots”…… Continue reading The Choice of a Persona: An Inductive Analysis of Why Stakeholders Choose a Given Persona for a Design Task

How Could Natural Language Processing Help Address Grand Challenges of Quantitative User Personas

  Human-computer interaction (HCI) and natural language processing (NLP) can collaborate. This article summarizes previous literature to identify grand challenges for applying NLP in quantitative user personas (QUPs), which exemplifies such collaboration. Grand challenges provide a collaborative starting point for researchers working at the intersection of NLP and QUPs, towards improved user experiences. NLP research…… Continue reading How Could Natural Language Processing Help Address Grand Challenges of Quantitative User Personas

Modeling the New Modalities of Personas: How Do Users’ Attributes Influence Their Perceptions and Use of Interactive

We investigate the impact of user demographics (age, gender) and experience (with personas and chatbots) on users’ perceptions of interactive personas. A within-subjects study was conducted with 54 participants, mostly engineers and computer scientists. Each participant used interactive personas with two interfaces: a web-based profile persona and a chat persona. The findings from regression analysis…… Continue reading Modeling the New Modalities of Personas: How Do Users’ Attributes Influence Their Perceptions and Use of Interactive

Deus Ex Machina and Personas from Large Language Models: Investigating the Composition of AI-Generated Persona Descriptions

Large language models (LLMs) can generate personas based on prompts that describe the target user group. To understand what kind of personas LLMs generate, in this research led by Joni Salminen, we investigate the diversity and bias in 450 LLM-generated personas with the help of internal evaluators (n=4) and subject-matter experts (SMEs) (n=5). The research findings…… Continue reading Deus Ex Machina and Personas from Large Language Models: Investigating the Composition of AI-Generated Persona Descriptions

Investigations into Digital Analytics

Our research team has conducted a series of studies concerning the use and effect of analytics. Some insightful findings are: Displaying or not displaying certain analytics to platform users will alter their behavior Analytics can provide insights into persona usage and interaction Analytics systems require more navigational focus compared to using personas for the same…… Continue reading Investigations into Digital Analytics

Is an organization ready for using personas?

Our research team has conducted a series of research studies examining when and how organizations can effectively use personas. Some findings are: (a) Personas for social good are primarily exploratory and focused on initial methodology development. (b) We develop and validate the Persona Readiness Scale (PRS), a survey instrument to measure organizational readiness for personas.…… Continue reading Is an organization ready for using personas?

Findings from a Series of User Studies Examining the Use of Fake Images and Videos

Our research group has conducted a series of user studies concerning the use of deepfake (i.e., AI generated) images and videos, focusing on how people perceive and react to these deepfakes in the context of personas. Findings from a series of user studies show that using artificial pictures in persona profiles did not decrease the…… Continue reading Findings from a Series of User Studies Examining the Use of Fake Images and Videos

Picturing the fictitious person: An exploratory study on the effect of images on user perceptions of AI-generated personas

The realness of fakes: Primary evidence of the effect of deepfake personas on user perceptions in a design task Led by Joni Salminen, this research explores user perceptions of AI-generated personas for textual content (GPT-4) and two image generation models (DALL-E and Midjourney). We evaluate whether the inclusion of images in AI-generated personas impacts user…… Continue reading Picturing the fictitious person: An exploratory study on the effect of images on user perceptions of AI-generated personas

Understanding Your Audience: ACUA’s Age Analytics 

In the dynamic landscape of social media, understanding your audience is crucial. The nuances of demographics often hold the key to crafting engaging and targeted content strategies. One of ACUA’s standout features lies in dissecting the age demographics of your audience, providing invaluable insights into the age groups engaging with your content. Actionable Use Cases…… Continue reading Understanding Your Audience: ACUA’s Age Analytics