Assignment 2 (continued)

User Analysis

I have chosen to use user personas in my analysis because I think it will be easier to design a good interface with specific "people" in mind. However the end product is similar to the use of user profiles, because the personas will range over the different user profiles there are.

Persona 1 - Primary persona

Martin Chambers, IT Executive

Martin is a 27-year-old IT executive who lives in the suburbs of a big city. He has been playing computer games since the age of 12 and loves the old games that, in his opinion, are a lot more fun than the standard ones with pretty ribbons these days. He is a big fan of simulation games, having played all the "Sim" games such as SimEarth, SimCity and SimTower. Being married with 1 child, he does not have much time for games and therefore has little patience for overly complicated games for which manual reading is compulsory. He is looking for a game that has depth but is easy to pick up and play.

Persona 2

Samuel Dixon, High School Student

Samuel is 17 years old and a student at a local high school. He is an avid gamer who has over 200 games on his shelf. He enjoys his Counterstrike and Warcraft, and is also attracted by role-playing games where he can be a hero. His computer experience is limited to gaming and internet-surfing, and he cannot stand old games because they "look ugly". He has the short attention span typical of kids his age nowadays, and does not play games with a steep initial learning curve.

Persona 3

Jenny Lee, Undergraduate

Jenny is a 21-year-old undergraduate studying mathematics. She started playing games under the influence of her boyfriend. She does not like Counterstrike and Warcraft, preferring instead casual games such as puzzle games, massively multiplayer role-playing games (MMORPGs), and sandbox games where the player can just build/design/develop without having to worry too much about details and statistics. She is not very good with computers, but she has her boyfriend to ask when she needs help.

Comments

I have not included any negative personas because I feel that they consist of people who do not enjoy games of the same genre as Dwarf Fortress and therefore will not pick it up in the first place.

After this activity, I realise that creating user personas is not an easy task for people with limited life experience such as me. Therefore the personas I have created are very stereotypical and I hope it does not offend anyone!