Pragmatic Personas: Connecting With Developers Via TDD
Even though personas are known to create more usable and valuable products, they are still unknown to many developers. Fortunately, techniques like story test driven development allow developers and personas to connect in a way that is valuable in the daily work of coding and delivering software.
Pragmatic personas help developers clarify stories and acceptance tests, providing tangible value and increasing the stickiness (and value) of personas among the developers and the entire project community. Come learn how the simplest persona that could possibly work usually provides the most value.
The session will walk through the creation and use of several personas to guide story writing and story test driven development. The participants will help create personas and stories for a product (as a group) as well as trying out the exercise for their products of projects (in small groups).
The personas will be used to create tests which will be automated, becoming executable definitions of the user experience. The participants will leave the session with persons, stories, and automated story tests which they can bring back to their shop as examples of how to create and connect personas to automated tests in a way that is accessible and tangible for the developers on their project.
The Sessions Tests (things that people with hear and experience)
- Personas which are simple are powerful are more likely to be sticky in developer land.
- Stories told in context of the user experience clarify value and create better automating tests.
- Naming the product value for the product personas helps create stronger products and backlogs.
- Tests are stronger when connected to user experiences via personas.