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A Practical Guide to Creating & Using Personas for the Web
Question or comment? authors@practicalpersonas.com
A quick review from Ian Lurie. I'm grateful for his closing: "If you're an internet marketer, or involved in internet marketing or development, you need to read this book."
Thanks to Will Evans for a very kind review of the book posted to the IxDA mailing list. I'm honored that he considers is among books "that go far beyond principles and theory to ones I can actually extract from and use their contents for the praxis of the craft, rather than just reading descriptions of a process."
I've learned that a Chinese translation of The User Is Always Right is now available, and a Japanese translation is in the works. Long live the user - everywhere!
I go to a lot of conferences, but there's a new one that I'm really looking forward to in October in San Francisco. It's being put on by New Riders (publisher of my book), and it's packed with other authors I have great respect for: Steve Krug, Dan Saffer, Derek Powazek, Andy Clarke, Dan Brown, Eric Meyer, Lance Loveday, Kelly Goto.... You get the idea. I'll be doing a session called "You Are Not Your User: Proven Techniques for Discovering Who Is." Check it out, and use priority code WD-MULD for $100 off.
I'll be talking about personas at the following conferences:
DigitalNow in Orlando, April 13
WebVisions in Portland, May 3
I'm delighted that Liz Danzico of Boxes and Arrows, one of my favorite reads, interviewed me about the book in "Long Live the User (Persona): Talking with Steve Mulder." You can also download pretty much the entirety of Chapter 3: Approaches to Creating Personas.
James Robertson has kind words about the book in his review, where he says, "This is a must-have book for web teams tackling the redesign of complex sites, or for user-centred designers seeking more rigorous methodologies when creating personas. I cannot recommend this book too highly."
Here's another review I missed earlier.
Too busy to decide if you want to buy the book? Try the podcasts, which take you on a whirlwind tour of the book's content. The audio comes from a Molecular webinar I did a while back.
For the industrious, you can also download the PowerPoint slides used in the webinar (warning: 23MB) for the full audio/visual experience.
Some kind words from an old friend: the guy who kept bugging me about writing another book until I said yes.
The book that will help you better serve your site's users is now available from Amazon.
I arrived home last night to find a package with several months of my life inside. It's alive! And I'm a proud papa. Standing by for availability on Amazon....
The book shipped to the printer today! Deliverance is at hand.
Greetings and salutations. You've found PracticalPersonas.com, a site devoted to the art and science of personas. It's also the companion site to the book The User Is Always Right. After about seven months, the writing is done and layout and indexing and so forth are nearly finished. I'm happy to say the book will be available in September.
The goal of this site is to keep the conversation going. A book is a snapshot in time, capturing the best advice and examples I have right now. But as we all know, user research and personas are constantly evolving, and there is always more to say. Drop by for the latest news and thoughts on personas: what value they bring, how they're created, and how they're used. I hope you'll participate along the way, either through comments or by emailing me at authors@practicalpersonas.com.
