“Personas” to Support Development of Cyberinfrastructure

What is it about?

The paper describes the process of developing personas for the DataONE project. Personas are detailed descriptions of an “archetypical user of a system” used as an approach for capturing and sharing knowledge about potential system users. Eleven personas were developed to support the DataONE project: five for various kinds of research scientists (e.g., at different career stages and using different types of data); a science data librarian; and five for secondary roles

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Why is it important?

To ensure that systems for sharing scientific data is useful, developers need to understand what scientists and other intended users do with data as well as the attitudes and beliefs that shape that use. Personas are a simple approach to conveying that information. The paper can help others who are interested in applying this technique to their own project and the specific personas may also be of interest to those creating scientific cyberinfrastructure.