Chapter 7 204 Implications for design: personas The personas developed and deployed for this study [61-63] served a threefold purpose: 1 to guide the design process of the prototype. 2 as an icebreaker to the target group – presenting real-life personas with real emotions and realistic situations. 3 as a representation of the typical problem-situations for emotional eaters. Guiding the design process Results demonstrated that users were positive about assessing the first prototype smartphone application. Its development was guided by the two personas (Chapter 2). Developers and designers were enabled to get a better understanding of the mental model of the target group, and gain insight and understanding of the needs of the emotional eaters [64-66]. Icebreaker to the target group Findings suggest that, given their approachability, using personas for this target group is effective. The deployment of personas made it possible to get close to the participants. Presenting so-called vignettes depicting the personas, and a description of a day in their lives made the topic of emotional eating behaviour easier to discuss for the participants [67-68]. This method of presentation contributed to purposeful and substantive response from participants due to their approachability and recognizability. Confirmation was obtained that the personas and scenarios presented were close to the lived reality of emotional eaters. Presenting personas also provided the participants with a distinct representation of their own connection to emotional eating behaviour. Ultimately, the various fragments of knowledge and individual insights gathered were synthesized into a comprehensive entity, potentially initiating an initial phase of awareness. Thus, presenting personas may allow future users to imagine issues of emotional eating behaviour that the user may not (yet) be able to put into words themselves.
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