This was a really good introduction to personas. One thing I've wondered for a while--how is using personas different from using scenarios? Are they the same thing? Are personas always a necessary part of scenarios?
Some ideas for personas for the circle exhibit:
1. a four year old boy who is shy in public and around strangers, but likes to build and play with physical objects
2. the boy's dad, who is an engineer, and really wants to get his son interested in science
3. a seven year old girl who is very outgoing, who likes creating complicated stories involving her friends and stuffed animals
Anyone want to add to these? It seems like there are so many possibilities, it's overwhelming! How general/specific do you get? I think it might help to base some personas on real people. For example, last quarter in ED 124, our group was working in a second grade classroom. One of the little girls was Korean, and hardly spoke any English. This made us start thinking about how to design our application (for teaching math) for someone who couldn't read, write, or speak English.
I personally think it's no big deal if personas have "no clear relationship to customer data" first of all, there is a relationship, because you would never create one without some ethnographic data (granted, the ones I listed above are based on all of two articles!). Also, personas are not SUPPOSED to be scientific. They're supposed to add the human element. And besides, they shouldn't be the basis of your entire design process, but just another tool and jumping off point for cycles of brainstorming and prototyping.