This thesis investigates the process of creating personas and introducing their use into an ongoing software project, with the objective of providing the development team with information on user goals and characteristics as well as tools to use this information effectively. Personas are fictive users of a product that are based on research and can be used to concretize user characteristics and goals in user-centered design. The theoretical framework of this thesis consists of an introduction to user-centered design processes followed by an overview of current research and reported uses of personas. Motivations for the effectiveness of personas as a method are presented as well as different approaches to the creation of personas. In addition, recommendations for the communication of personas to a product development team are reviewed and success factors for a persona effort are identified. The thesis work was carried out in the development of Sonera Cid Manager, a web-based telephony management application developed for telecom operator TeliaSonera by software solution provider Novo. There is a wide variety of user roles in the application, which provides for an interesting setting for persona development and use. Personas were created based on qualitative research on current and potential users of the system. These personas were then communicated to the development team using different means. After an initial period of use, the perceived usefulness of the persona method and effectiveness different means of communication was evaluated. Personas were judged to be a useful tool when used in conjunction with appropriate methods such as scenarios and successfully integrated into existing work practices.
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