What are Personas?

Personas are used in industry to help focus on user needs in the product development process by bringing statistical and other user data to life. Personas are endowed with backgrounds, personalities, and visual identities, as well as functional characteristics that represent the diversity of customers and potential customers.

The personas presented here are composites of the characteristics of mobile phone users in the Consumer Advisory Network; they do not represent all persons with disabilities, nor all mobile phone users. These mobile phone user personas offer a glimpse into the lives behind the data, exploring the reasons why mobile phones are as widely used among persons with disabilities as among the general population, despite the cost.

These personas also help in understanding issues of usefulness and usability of mobile phones by persons with disabilities. Their profiles can be used as “quick tests” for initial assessment of prototype designs and as templates for recruiting representative participants for structured simulations to evaluate prototype designs.

As we gather more information through our survey and focus groups, we learn more about users of other wireless technologies.  As appropriate, we add to existing personas and post additional personas to present these new findings.