Composite Character

Learning Goals

1. Students develop a composite character of the user to compile their findings into one specific character.

General Description

You can use the composite character profile to bucket interesting observations into one specific, recognizable character. Teams sometimes get hung up on outlying (or non-essential) characteristics of any of a number of particular potential users, and the composite character profile is a way for them to focus the team's attention on the salient and relevant characteristics of the user whom they wish to address.

The composite character profile is a synthesis method whereby the team creates a (semi)-fictional character who embodies the human observations the team has made in the field.

Activities

Activity 1 (30 minute budget)

Teacher has teams unpack their findings on to post it notes, then coalesce notes into a character description.

Have student teams needs unpack their interview and field observations. After this is done, show the teams an example composite character like the one below.

After this the team should survey across the individual users it encountered in the field to identify relevant dimensions of commonality and/or complementarity – these dimensions could be demographic information, strange proclivities and habits, or sources of motivation, to name only a few.

After several dimensions of commonality have been identified, list these features of the user; if there are any dimensions of complementarity (those which may not be shared by all users, but are interesting to the team and not necessarily mutually exclusive), the team should add these as well.

Last, give your character a name, and make sure every member of the team buys into the identity and corresponding characteristics that the team has created.