Personas
Building for makers
We collected the findings from our user research to create a set of personas. Personas help us understand makers’ pains, desires, and goals for using makerspaces. Each design decision is centered around our personas, who ultimately represent the makers that we are designing for.
We took all the key factors we learned from our interviewees – such as demographics, makerspace experiences, trouble points – and began to categorize them into pains, desires, and goals in the makerspace. Then we identified unique characteristics of makers and started sketching.
Meet our personas, Oliver and Eleanor
Oliver is a typical user of the makerspace. He wants to be an electrical engineer someday. He knows exactly what he wants to do and how to do it, and uses the makerspace as a place to improve, refine, and hone his skills for his intended future career path. Many of his friends are also experienced makerspace users studying engineering.
Eleanor is a frequent makerspace user, but falls just outside the typical STEM maker circle. She studies industrial design. She’s creative and experimental. Ellie is shy, but she comes to the makerspace to learn and to turn her creative ideas into reality. She wants to explore the endless capabilities that the makerspace offers and hopes it’ll be an empowering outlet for creativity.
Oliver and Eleanor keep us grounded as we move forward in the process of creating our application. They remind us to create for the makers. Using Oliver and Eleanor, we created user scenarios that makers may commonly find themselves in.
