Other than that, based on my practical experience in the field I thought their definition was a good start and fit for internal information products. Still, since today's digital world is more complex I came up with two other personas, one that reflects middle management's hybrid responsibilities (analyst and manager), and one that's broad enough to have many sub-categories (personal data trackers). Nowadays, digital products offer analytics-as-a-service for those who want them, but that's usually part of a broader solution package. For instance, you have your mobile banking app where you can also see trends related to budgeting and cash flow as an information product within the banking app. As you can see, this is more of a practical exercise on my hand rather than a scientific academic study :)
I hope this answers your question and I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Thank you for the info! This is great. I'm doing some research at the National Oceanography Centre and I must say I see great correlation across the first two and the last one, but not so much in the 'hybrid' category. I think the "Personal data tracking" could be called "Data tracking" as it also encompasses individuals who like tracking things as a hobby as you mentioned - and this includes people that participate in citizen science (for example)... very good article, thank you for posting! Love the Interaction Design Foundation :)
That's great to hear Ola! Where in the world are you located?
I think the hybrid case is pretty specific to a few positions in the technology world such as product manager, business analyst, and in general, positions that work between business professionals and tech professionals.
As for individuals who like to track things, the only reason I'd add the word "personal" is to emphasize I'm not dealing with work-related use. And yeah, the IxDF has some great courses :)
I 100% agree, too many organizations develop solutions that aren't aligned with their users' real data needs and that leads to an impressive amount of dashboards and reports that just sit there unused.
Hi! Would love to know what research you based these four categories on?
Hello Ola, that's a great question!
So, the first two personas (information analyst and information consumer) come from the Interaction Design Foundation. You can check out this course: https://www.interaction-design.org/courses/information-visualization-infovis?r=yaron-cohen
Other than that, based on my practical experience in the field I thought their definition was a good start and fit for internal information products. Still, since today's digital world is more complex I came up with two other personas, one that reflects middle management's hybrid responsibilities (analyst and manager), and one that's broad enough to have many sub-categories (personal data trackers). Nowadays, digital products offer analytics-as-a-service for those who want them, but that's usually part of a broader solution package. For instance, you have your mobile banking app where you can also see trends related to budgeting and cash flow as an information product within the banking app. As you can see, this is more of a practical exercise on my hand rather than a scientific academic study :)
I hope this answers your question and I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Thank you for the info! This is great. I'm doing some research at the National Oceanography Centre and I must say I see great correlation across the first two and the last one, but not so much in the 'hybrid' category. I think the "Personal data tracking" could be called "Data tracking" as it also encompasses individuals who like tracking things as a hobby as you mentioned - and this includes people that participate in citizen science (for example)... very good article, thank you for posting! Love the Interaction Design Foundation :)
That's great to hear Ola! Where in the world are you located?
I think the hybrid case is pretty specific to a few positions in the technology world such as product manager, business analyst, and in general, positions that work between business professionals and tech professionals.
As for individuals who like to track things, the only reason I'd add the word "personal" is to emphasize I'm not dealing with work-related use. And yeah, the IxDF has some great courses :)
Another great post Yaron! Keep championing user-centered choices, because THAT'S how data makes a difference. Thanks for sharing🤗
Thanks a lot, Karo!
I 100% agree, too many organizations develop solutions that aren't aligned with their users' real data needs and that leads to an impressive amount of dashboards and reports that just sit there unused.