Diversity App Step 5-Personas
“Previously On Diversity Inclusion”…
Hello! The last time we talked, I was describing my my main ideas for this assignment. I believe my strongest idea was creating a story-based interaction with animated characters explaining different disabilities. Now that I have picked my final idea, I need to look a little closer at who it is I’m making my design for. In order to understand my target audience a little better, I must create a persona. This is where you create a made-up person who you are planning to design this for. It is all about discovering what is going to attract my user and who I can get them to listen.
My Persona:
My user’s name is Jacob Boyle.
Jacob is a 7th grade, caucasian boy at a local middle school in Central West End, Missouri. Jacob is turning 13 this year. Jacob tends to get a little nervous around other students with disabilities. He feels he doesn’t know how to interact with them.
When asked about this topic, Jacob replied:
“I don’t know if they can do the things I like to do. I don’t talk to them much.”
Jacob in his free time loves to play video games. He enjoys Skylanders and Mario Bros. Jacob is an active kid. After school, he likes to play baseball and basketball with his friends. He is up to date with all the viral videos on youtube. Jacob thinks dabbing and listening to old town road is funny. Other than Snapchat, Jacob doesn’t have any other social medias.
Jacob does okay in school. He tends to tune out if the class is boring. He doesn’t like to stay still for a long time so that makes it hard for him to focus. Jacob currently enjoys his science class. He likes to fiddle around with materials to invent something new.
Jacob has a little brother and a pet dog. He lives with both his parents. He gets along fine with his family, however; he sometimes gets in trouble for not listening.
Jacob’s only income is birthday money but he likes to save up and try to buy a new nerf gun or get anything from the Adidas brand.
When Jacob doesn’t understand something, it frustrates him and makes him nervous. This leads to him trying to avoid whatever it is that caused it. This is why it is difficult for him to interact with kids of disabilities. He feels bad and doesn’t know how to talk to them.
What should I take away from this?
Similar to a lot of middle school kids, Jacob has a short attention span. So it is my job as a designer to create something that is entertaining to that type of generation. If it is fun and silly, the kids would enjoy it more. I believe the characters should do some sort of activity with the user. It might be funny if they dance or it might be cool if they played a sport. I want users, like Jacob, to understand that disabilities don’t stop people from finding passions and living a normal life. If we take the time to recognize that, the users will find that disabled students are more similar to them than they think.
