DH110
DH110 Assignment 4: Persona and Usage Scenario
Carlie Huang, Spring 2023
UX Storytelling
The purpose of UX storytelling is to put yourself in the shoes of the users to gain a deeper understanding of their needs, motivations, challenges, etc. Furthermore, it creates a unified vision of user segments that can help guide the design process so the end product is tailored towards real potential users. In the process of delving into a persona and their journey, you let go of your own biases.
The two tasks that demonstrate the envisioned functionality of my design are:
- Ease of use, with similar interface to other messaging apps, to help less technologically-adept users
- Language-learning features to promote learning and grwoth for the more technologically-adept users
Mei Liu
Persona
Empathy Map
Scenario
Mei is out for a walk while her son is at work and her grandchildren are at school. She loves the clean, fresh air and all the natural beauty that California has to offer. She stops to smell the neighbor’s roses, which have just started blooming, and then heads towards the neighborhood park. There, she meets up with some of the other elderly Chinese people living in the neighborhood to do Tai Chi. After they’re done, they sit around to drink water and talk— she is so relieved to be able to have a full conversation in her native language and connect with others. She then heads to the grocery store to pick up a couple of things before she has to head home. As she’s shopping, a worker asks if she needs any help and she stares at them blankly before softly saying “I don’t speak English,” a phrase her grandchildren taught her to pronounce. She quickly gathers the items she needs and heads to the cashier. She’s always wondered if he speaks Chinese because he looks like he might; today, she’s feeling brave, so she lets out a quick “hello” in Mandarin. He immediately smiles and starts conversing with her in Mandarin. They have a lot in common, including a grandchild with the same name! She’s very excited, and thinks about it her whole way home. Finally, she gets home to an empty house and can’t wait to tell someone the funny story about the cashier and the coincidence.
Mei pulls out her phone and clumsily navigates to the app that her grandchildren installed for her. Inside the app, she opens the group chat with her son and his children which is pinned to the top of her screen for easy access. She hits the tex box on the bottom of the screen to start typing out her message. Her phone’s language is set to Chinese, and comes with a feature to write out the characters on the screen instead of typing them, so she opts for this. She then crafts her message slowly and hits the send button. The interface is similar to WeChat, which she uses often to communicate with her friends back in China, so she understands how it works. While waiting for them to respond, she puts away her groceries and thinks about what she can talk to her new friend about tomorrow. Finally, her grandchild Amy responds, saying that the story made her laugh and that she hopes her grandma is having a good day. Even though Amy doesn’t speak Chinese, the response is in Chinese characters. Mei is overjoyed and puts the app down happily.
Journey Map
2. Natalie Garcia
Persona
Empathy Map
Scenario
Natalie wakes up in the morning with a busy day ahead of her. Not only does she have 2 classes and a homework assignment due at midnight, she also has a meeting with student leadership and a shift at the local homeless shelter. She quickly gets ready and then heads to her first class. As she looks around her classroom, she can’t help but to feel a slight pang of sadness— unlike back home in Texas, Hispanic people are far underrepresented at her college. The first half of her day breezes by, and she gets through her classes, doing her homework in the gap between them. She heads to the leadership meeting. During the meeting, the students discuss a Spanish-teaching program that allows college students to engage with and teach elementary schoolers. Natalie listens regretfully; she never learned Spanish to fluency beacuse she was taught to focus on in-school subjects like English and Math, but she wishes she had now, especially beacuse her Spanish-speaking relatives are getting older. Finally, after the meeting, she heads to the homeless shelter and has a great time serving and connecting with the community. After a long day, she feels a little homesick and decides to call her family back in Texas. However, she struggles to express herself fully because of the language barrier. Her family also struggles to understand her because of their limited English skills. Fortunately, Natalie remembers the instant-translation messaging app that her friend recommended and decides to give it a try.
Natalie downloads the app and tells her family to do the same. She easily sets up an account and has her sister back in Texas help her less technologically-adept relatives set up theirs. She starts chats with all of them and they instantly get to talking. She loves that she can speak freely in her language of choice, they can do the same, and noone suffers because of it. She also likes that she can toggle between the translated and original texts by tapping on the message so she can refresh her Spanish knowledge and even learn more. She tells her mom all about her day, and her mom, sensing from her tone how stressed out she is, comforts her and offers to send a care package her way. Natalie is overjoyed and her homesickness is alleviated. She wishes them all a good night before falling asleep that night.
Journey Map
