Agile, Educational and Empathetic: a Digital Persona Set Linked to User Journeys Serving Accessibili

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Agile, Educational and Empathetic: a Digital Persona Set Linked to User Journeys Serving Accessibility

Type: Breakout

Track: Design

You already know about personae even in the field of accessibility. Supporting creativity, these archetypes of users also prove to be invaluable for bringing use cases to life and for embodying testers with disabilities. This is the challenge of our set which is fully integrated into the agile approach. Each of our personae is directly linked to a guideline base, user stories, and the corresponding acceptance criteria. The Product Owner thus has all the tools in hand to provide users with an accessible digital experience.

 

Hi, everyone.  Thanks for joining.  If you are looking for the agile educational session, you are in the right place.  We are waiting for a few people to get started.  

I think test time to get started.  Hi name is Grace Kirkly from the Deque team and I'm excited to be moderating today's session tight the, agile, educational and empathetic, digital personalinged to user journeys serving accessibility.  Presenting today will be Nathalie Pican and Vincent Aniort from Orange.  I'll go over a few housekeeping items beforehanding things over.  The session is being recordedend you'll be able to watch the session on demand if you come back to the presentation page you're on now later today or tomorrow.  Live captions are available below the video screen.  Finally, we'll save the last ten minutes or so of today's session for Q&A.  So please post your questions in the Slido Q&A next to the chat which is also located beside this video stream.  And I recommend sorting your chat by "recent" so you can see comments scroll dynamically as they are input.  With that, I will turn things over to our presenters.  

>> VINCENT ANIORT:  Okay, thank you.  I'm Vincent Aniort.  I focus on agile and educational how they're linked to journeys, serving accessibility.  My talking points are who are we?  Who is a persona and what is it for?  How are personas used in the field of accessibility?  Why did we want to create persona set?  How is our persona set designed?  How can you navigate between personas and other tools?  

First of all, when who are we?  We work for Orange.  We have around 180,000 employees worldwide.  You must know that Orange is invested in digital inclusion.  Orange has a department since 2005 called EASE for eAccessibility solutions for everyone.  

Who are we?  First of all, we give training.  We have awareness sessions to course, project owner, designer, et cetera.  All training sessions are also available in eLearning.  We also provide accessibility in every Orange design.  Accessibility guidelines, we explain in WCAG.  Front end framework known as bootstrap called it Orange boosted.  Digital project themes can apply and accessibility criteria on their own.  And, of course, a team of accessibility experts, we support a team over the life of a project and accessibility audits.  

 

We created the accessibility statement for our websites and mobile apps.  But let's talk about the French on the next slide.  French and European accessibility laws what are they?  First of all, we have Europe directive on accessibility and websites.  The law for digital content to be accessibility and accessible means WCAG 2.1 double A.  It was transcribed to a French title.  

This has been extended to companies with a turnover of more than 250 million euros so around one of these.  It's pretty huge internet, extranet, intranet sites.  Mobile apps, digital docs, audio and video files, software packages.  That line is July 2021 to write for each site an accessibility statement.  We have three more years to be definitively accessible.  

You can easily understand that it's going to be a hard year, and a busy year with this kind of deadline.  Next slide.  

 

>> NATHALIE PICAN:  Thank you for those introductions.  Let's get into the bare bones of the topics.  To begin, what is a persona?  A persona is not a real person.  It's an architect of user, of a product, a service built from real data, mainly from interviews, and service.  It was Allen Cooper, 1999, who first suggest the concept of user character in software design.  

What does persona mean.  Keeping the whole target in mind.  Stimulating creativity.  By using a narrative pictures and name, a persona provides designer with vivid representations of the target.  It helps to get realistic idea of users throughout the design process to make decisions about product features, navigations, interactions, visual design, and much more.  

To prioritize the design work understanding what the user needs and what functions are nice to add and have.  How are personas used in the field of accessibility?  Next slide.  We study various elements of personas on more particularly on accessibility.  We found several studies using personas to work with on people with disabilities.  For example, we created a group of personas for everyone.  The website, story of people with disabilities using the web to highlight the effect of accessibility buyers on the broader benefits of accessible website on web talks.  

Creating personas for people with disabilities can be invariable on accessible product.  Accessibility personas identify the barriers, frustrations and common issues that people with disabilities face when using inaccessible product and often result in benefits of all users.  Next slide.  

 

 

Why did we want to create persona's set?  The creation of persona set accessing accessibility had several objectives.  We wanted to create empathy for people with disabilities.  We would like inquiries to understand that their disabled colleagues are just like them.  They have a life, a family.  First of all, all of us could be temporarily disabled.  

We all have concern with accessibility and we all have a role to play.  Digital accessibility is not only for specialists, but inverse, everyone.  For example, you have to follow a few simple rules.  With personas, we provide access to these rules.  Second objectives.  We do a lot of accessibility training.  When you can involve the person with a disability, students immediately pay much more attention.  But it's difficult to find people who are willing to testify, so personas can help us with this.  

Third objective.  We also wanted to find a solution to implement recommendations for getting accessibility.  They need to understand why these recommendations are important.  And we need to help them to integrate them into their project.  

Finally, we regularly carry out technical audits.  When presenting the report, referring to a persona, hence, to appropriately illustrate a program.  Next slide.  

 

 

How a persona is set consists of ten individuals.  The more specific we make our personas, the more effective the design.  So we have six men and four women ranging in age from 23 to 70.  Six work at Orange like manager, UX designer, technicians.  And four are Orange customers.  

Some live in a big city.  Others in the countryside.  Some are married, and have children, or they live alone.  An objective was to represent the disabilities that could cause a digital accessibility problem.  Visually impaired.  Angelique is blind and Marvin is partially blind.  For hearing, Simon is a Deaf man and Madi [phonetic] is partially Deaf.  [Indiscernible] is dyslexic.  Thomas suffers from musculoskeletal disorder known as Down's syndrome.  Suzette is an older woman.  Eric is temporarily disabled.  He has to lay in his bed for two months.  He can only use his smartphone.  And Dong is Chinese and doesn't speak French.  He's also color blind.  Next slide.  

To make our different objectives, we have created an online pool presenting four types of content.  A technical sheet, the personal sheet, a summary sheet, and a poster.  Let's look at them one by one.  The poster.  Here is Angelique's poster.  We see the photo of her.  Her first name and age, her job and disability.  A code that characterizes her, and a QR code that allows you to have access to the full descriptions online.  We create posters to put them on the wall of the corridors on the elevators of the company to arouse curiosity.  We also want to put them on the wall of the meeting to our project teams to always keep their target in mind.  

Next slide.  Thanks.  The summary sheet summarizes a full page.  The information is present on technical and personal sheets.  It needs to be printed to be used during creativity and design workshop.  Finally -- no, next slide.  

Finally, there are two, the first called personal sheet described the persona's biography, passions, happens and daily frustrations.  This sheet is intended to marketers and UX designers.  For example, Angelique has been blind since birth.  She has a degree in English.  She's also a talented pianist.  She's an active woman very interested in her appearance.  She loves shopping and how to apply her makeup.  Her frustration is she can't listen to music when going from place to place because she needs to pay close attention to the noise around her for her safety.  

The sheet provides additional information which can be displayed by clicking on links for information features.  If you click on the word, you can discover for people that are visually impaired.  If you click on the word "colors" there's an information book which explains how to describe a color to a person who has never seen one.  It's possible to share it with sensations.  For example, red generally associates with sunburn, or when you are facing an embarrassing situation, your cheeks turn red.  

 

 

The second sheet -- next slide -- is titled, technical sheet.  It describes the persona's use of technology.  What tools in assistive technology he has and above all, what digital program he may deal with.  For example, at work, Angelique spends her time at the computer listening with one ear to her screen reader and the other to the personal.  She use as reader and keyboard.  It can be very tiring.  

She would like not to use personal technology in her personal life but it's impossible not to use the internet.  Example of technology based limitations.  Angelique as her reader configurated to links within her page.  This sheet is intended for accessibility experts, project owners and developers.  

As you can see the word links and underlined, as we show you, each persona is directly linked to a deadline base, user stories, testing and corresponding tools.  Go ahead, Vincent.  

>> VINCENT ANIORT:  Thank you, Nathalie.  What we're working on is creation of all the links to combine each of our documentation and tools on our open source internet site.  These docs and tools are on the personal site, of course.  Our explanation of a WCAG 2.1 criteria.  Our accessibility methods.  Our user story set to using methodologies and the method and tools used to test.  All these are linked together to other projects to have explanation on the how's and why's and to better understand all the implication involved between all these documents.  

Next slide.  Navigation between persona and user stories.  Navigation -- excuse me.  When you are project owner, you can be interesting to access the personal related to the impacted public or for user story to know which type of real user is impacted by which kind of acceptance criteria.  It's even more important when we talk about accessibility, of course.  

So these are the links but it can be important to know a certain impaired user, what their technical limitations are.  Each of the stories on the same template with item description in front of as an impaired user I want to do something, and acceptance criteria.  And given I have this kind of impairment when I use this functionality, then I can get that result.  If needed, some specific management tools.  The person impacted and the WCAG reference.  

Next slide.  Navigation between persona and guidelines.  Our guide lines can, for example, help a person better understand the type of impaired user who are impacted by a guideline and conversely, when someone reads a guideline for user impacted, it's also on the same template a title, target, the type of impaired user, list of person impacted, project phases, and guidelines should be taken into account, description for list of things to check, user goal, a do and don't, and the WCAG reference.  

Navigation between persona and testing.  Procedures to follow to test a specific guideline linked to guideline, but also linked to persona when type of person is impacted by a specific test.  For example, a blind user test on the -- with the keyboard.  These test are also built on the same template with title and how to that explains step by step how to identify the element to check.  A list of checks for each item element.  Results expected.  Designer, developers, accessibility experts, list of persona and tool used if there are any.  

Next slide.  Navigation between persona and methods and tools.  Sometimes you need an explanation how to use a guideline because you have to use specific assistive technology technique or two and you need to know how to.  For example, the way to use and test the screen reader.  We are linking persona to methods of test.  

Next slide.  Persona links and sheets.  We should be proud of our accessibility guidelines site.  Persona put a user in the center of a design process.  Persona set will gather all the links to our documentation, tools.  When needed, there are links between our story set, our guide lines, and tools and methods.  Tools and methods in the story are already linked to each other.  We are currently working on the user interface and how to simplify it to be sure it will be user able.  And really helps project to take into account accessibility, be more empathetic with users.  We are still working on, and we hope to be finished by the end of this summer.  Next slide.  

In conclusion, this persona, first feedback from project owners.  Project designer, managers are pretty good.  It's useful, practical, educational and agile.  The persona is the center of the interview to build current accessibility documentation and way to utilize accessibility.  That could be the right thing to do.  To be sure to take into account the user, and therefore, accessibility during their digital projects.  Thank you, and let's go to the questions.   

>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much, Nathalie and Vincent.  Let's get into the questions.  Gabby asked, I've seen personas be used as an excuse not to have to talk to users, how do these personas intersect with usability testing in your practice?  

>> VINCENT ANIORT:  We're not really using persona to -- usability testing.  When we need to -- following a project in accessibility, we have specific employees with impairments.  And we are -- we use them to make some usability testing on the applications to be sure there will be no barriers for what kind of people, impaired people.  And much of the time, it's people using screen readers because a screen reader is best way to find accessibility bias.  So we're not using persona to make our usability testing.  

>> MODERATOR: So you're not using personas to replace usability testing.  

>> VINCENT ANIORT:  Yeah.  

>> MODERATOR: Great, thank you.  So there's a ton of interest in your personas themselves.  One person is asking if they're available for other people to use or perhaps look at or borrow from?  

>> VINCENT ANIORT:  I didn't hear the question.  

>> MODERATOR: I can repeat that.  A lot of people are really impressed with the personas you've created.  And they're wondering if they, themselves, can look at them or use them or perhaps...  

>> VINCENT ANIORT:  Yeah, of course.  Like our guidelines and user stories and so on, as you can see on the screen, we have a site with all the personas will be put I think next month.  The summer, okay.  

>> NATHALIE PICAN:  On the summer.  

>> VINCENT ANIORT:  This summer, it will be available, the persona, the ten persona, in this location on our website.  And, of course, in English and in French, too.  

>> MODERATOR: Fabulous.  So for anybody who is on the stream right now, you can follow the website posted here and in a couple of months the personas will be posted, is that right?  

>> VINCENT ANIORT:  Yeah, summer.  Next summer it will be up.  

>> MODERATOR: Awesome.  Next question is, how do you make sure in your process of developing personas that you're being as inclusive as possible for people with disabilities?  

>> VINCENT ANIORT:  We have made the -- a lot of study on the different persona set already existing.  We are -- we also ask a lot of people with impairments before doing our own persona set.  So we think we have something that represents all the kind of impairments in this persona set.  But if there's something missing, we can, of course, add more persona to our persona set.  So it's open, too so you can contribute and we would be delighted to have commentaries.  

>> MODERATOR: So people can contribute with, perhaps, their own personas and help them grow and develop over time.  

>> VINCENT ANIORT:  Yeah, it helps.  

>> MODERATOR: Awesome.  And as a segment off of that question, can you describe a little bit further the data or the research that went into creating the personas?  

>> VINCENT ANIORT:  Nathalie.  

>> NATHALIE PICAN:  We study different articles and we interview different people.  And we have -- [speaking French].  

>> VINCENT ANIORT:  Over persona of impaired user, but we focus on digital and technical impairments and not all the impairments existing.  

>> MODERATOR: Thank you.  

>> VINCENT ANIORT:  It's why there's only ten personas.  

>> MODERATOR: Right.  Okay.  So the next question here is from someone who is looking to make inclusive personas at their company, but are looking for ways to help their co-workers and colleagues embrace accessibility when they're very data driven.  So can you explain how somebody might want to create personas at their own organization, but their organization might not be as focussed on accessibility right now?  

>> VINCENT ANIORT:  I think that one -- a good way to win people on accessibility and persona, it's to put posters on the corridors, entrance rooms and meeting rooms, link it with a QR code to a page on the site to explain more about the persona.  I think it's really -- because when you see the poster and you don't know exactly what it is, it's really -- you go to the site where you can explain in detail the persona and why it's important to take into account accessibility for that kind of person with this kind of impairment.  

So I think it's -- at least arrange posters of the job to people on accessibility.  And technical problems for impaired users.  

>> MODERATOR: So really making the people around you of what accessibility is and what a disability is.  

>> VINCENT ANIORT:  And why it's so important to make things accessible to these kinds of people, yeah, exactly.  

>> MODERATOR: Gotcha.  Great.  All right.  Let's see.  Do you include people without disabilities in your persona set or just people with disabilities?  

>> VINCENT ANIORT:  It's only people with disabilities because it's a persona set of people with disabilities.  There's many persona set of people without disabilities.  So if we need people without disabilities, we have many associates, but for people with disabilities, there's not much persona set already ready to use.  

>> NATHALIE PICAN:  Temporary disabled.  Because everyone, we can all have a disability, temporary.  

>> MODERATOR: That's true and a good thing to include, right.  

>> VINCENT ANIORT:  Yeah.  Not a real impaired user, just temporarily impaired.  Yep.  

>> NATHALIE PICAN:  We have also Dong is Chinese and it's not a disability, but when you don't speak French, we can -- 

>> VINCENT ANIORT:  It's difficult to learn.  Of course it's difficult to understand.  Or you want to speak in English, sometimes it's a bit difficult.  

>> MODERATOR: Right like a lot of accessibility features, like captions, for instance, are helpful to non-native speakers of that language but also great for disability features.  Excellent.  Another question is asking, how do you respond to advocates with disabilities who express concerns of the creations of personas because they can't completely replicate the lived experience and unique adaptations made in real life?  

>> VINCENT ANIORT:  Yeah, good question.  It's a tool, it's not -- it can't be real people and it can't be a real situations.  We cannot really -- it's not the aim of persona set to be a real person, so I have -- we cannot respond to that kind of question.  It's not real.  It's a tool.  

>> MODERATOR: You can get as close as you can.  

>> VINCENT ANIORT:  Right, but it will never be real.  Just a tool.  Another tool.  

>> MODERATOR: Good point.  

>> VINCENT ANIORT:  Close to reality, but not real.  

 

>> MODERATOR: Here's another question about language barriers.  This person asks, I'm curious how language barriers between people creating personas impacts persona development?  This person is wondering, does it help foster empathy or does it create an additional barrier to I guess accurately describing a person?  

>> VINCENT ANIORT:  A persona set is in multiple language.  It can help people with another language to be much more with accessibility but if there's a real language person barrier between the persona set and the real user of a persona set, yeah, it's another barrier.  The only way to be sure is to translate your persona set into as many languages as you can.  For example, in Orange we have a Polish team, we have Spanish team, so we know one day we'll have to translate into Spanish and Polish for sure, but it's hard work.  

 

 

>> MODERATOR: Sure.  Well a good accessible user experience should speak for itself, so to speak, right?  

>> VINCENT ANIORT:  Yep.  

>> MODERATOR: Awesome.  I think we can sneak in one more question.  Michelle asks, how do you manage working with a large set of personas in your process?  Do you check each persona for every feature each time or do you select the personas specifically? 

  

  

>> VINCENT ANIORT:  We are selecting for much impacted persona for functionality.  And we only use two or three persona, which more impacted and that the other technical barriers, most important technical barriers.  We are not using all the persona for each feature.  It's too long to sit.  

>> MODERATOR: Got it.  I could see it would be much more manageable that way instead of going through each persona for each piece of functionality you build.  

 

>> VINCENT ANIORT:  Yeah.  We try to choose the most impacted users for personas, yeah.  

>> MODERATOR: All right, excellent.  Well, we can keep the rest of our sessions on track, I think we're going to wrap up now.  But thank you so much, Nathalie and Vincent for your presentation.