How does an imaginary persona's attractiveness affect designers' perceptions and IT solutions? An experimental study on users' remote working needs

Datos Bibliográficos

ID21596162
AutoresJoni Salminen (0000-0001-9912-6161, University of Vaasa, autor de correspondencia), J M Santos (0000-0001-6414-6891, Iscte – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa), Soon-Gyo Jung (0000-0002-6130-8012), Soon‐gyo Jung (Hamad bin Khalifa University), Bernard J Jansen (0000-0002-6468-6609, Hamad bin Khalifa University)
Año2023
Volumen36
Número8
Páginas196-225
Fecha de publicación2023-12-18
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaInformation Technology and People (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0959-3845 • E-ISSN: 1758-5813
EditorialEmerald (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1108/itp-09-2022-0729
OpenAlexW4385381017
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas90

Purpose The “what is beautiful is good” (WIBIG) effect implies that observers tend to perceive physically attractive people in a positive light. The authors investigate how the WIBIG effect applies to user personas, measuring designers' perceptions and task performance when employing user personas for the design of information technology (IT) solutions. Design/methodology/approach In a user experiment, the authors tested six different personas with 235 participants that were asked to develop remote work solutions based on their interaction with a fictitious user persona. Findings The findings showed that a user persona's perceived attractiveness was positively correlated with other perceptions of the persona. The personas' completeness, credibility, empathy, likability and usefulness increased with attractiveness. More attractive personas were also perceived as more agreeable, emotionally stable, extraverted and open, and the participants spent more time engaging with personas they perceived attractive. A linguistic analysis indicated that the IT solutions created for more attractive user personas demonstrated a higher degree of affect, but for the most part, task outputs did not vary by the personas' perceived attractiveness. Research limitations/implications The WIBIG effect applies when designing IT solutions with user personas, but its effect on task outputs appears limited. The perceived attractiveness of a user persona can impact how designers interact with and engage with the persona, which can influence the quality or the type of the IT solutions created based on the persona. Also, the findings point to the need to incorporate hedonic qualities into the persona creation process. For example, there may be contexts where it is helpful that the personas be attractive; there may be contexts where the attractiveness of the personas is unimportant or even a distraction. Practical implications The findings point to the need to incorporate hedonic qualities into the persona creation process. For example, there may be contexts where it is helpful that the personas be attractive; there may be contexts where the attractiveness of the personas is unimportant or even a distraction. Originality/value Because personas are created to closely resemble real people, the authors might expect the WIBIG effect to apply. The WIBIG effect might lead decision makers to favor more attractive personas when designing IT solutions. However, despite its potential relevance for decision making with personas, as far as the authors know, no prior study has investigated whether the WIBIG effect extends to the context of personas. Overall, it is important to understand how human factors apply to IT system design with personas, so that the personas can be created to minimize potentially detrimental effects as much as possible

Attractiveness · Empathy · Human–computer interaction · Perception · Persona · User experience design · Applied Psychology · Communication · Computer Science · Innovative Human-Technology Interaction · Persona Design and Applications · Psychology · Service and Product Innovation · Social Psychology