Who are we developing for? : Identifying the users and their needs for the video streaming support service “Streamingkollen”

Abstract: It has become more and more important for creators of technical services to know whom they are designing for so they can satisfy their customers. A way to satisfy the costumers is to include a User Experience (UX) process in line with the creation process of the service. To create a good UX for the users one firstly needs to identify and understand the users. This thesis has investigated how the use of Personas can facilitate the understanding of the user in the context of User Experience (UX). A Persona is a fictive person that is a representation of a user group. A Persona is created with the objective that through the connection of the user goals, attitude and behaviours one can truly understand the users from an UX perspective. This thesis is creating Personas for a service called Streamingkollen. That is a service with the goal to help users with problems they have, connected to Video on demand (VoD) services. A video on demand service is a service that allows the users to watch videos whenever they want. Netflix, SVT play, HBO Nordic, TV4 play, are some examples of VoD services. The user data was collected through user interviews on predetermined users and then segmented into different user groups”. Personas were created, to make the different user group more realistic and easier to communicate. The different findings about the different user groups was put together as a story about one person (representing the user group) with a name, family, a job etc., and different characteristics that reflected the user group. The result is presented in three found user groups. The user groups were put together with different elements thanks to the segmentation and Personas. The segmentation made it possible to identify what causes the different needs that the users had when wanting support with a technical problems connected to VoD service and how these needs could be satisfied.. The Personas translated the user data into stories so that the findings about the users were easier to understand and adapt to. The role Personas play in the UX process is that without the comprehensive picture that is presented in the Personas and created thought data gathering and segmentation, it can be hard to identify the users needs and how they can be achieved.