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Step 4—List relevant characteristics and objectives

Identifying objectives and expressing them succinctly is one of the most critical tasks in modeling a persona, as these goals will guide design. Each objective must be inferred from the behavioral variables identified and expressed as a simple sentence.

User objectives serve as a lens through which designers must consider the functions of a product. The function and behavior of the product must meet objectives through tasks, a small number of absolutely necessary tasks. Remember, chores are only a means to an end; goals are this end.

For each pattern that you identified in the previous step, synthesize the details from the information you have from the searches, describing:

Main tasks and day-to-day flow;
Problems with current solutions;
Environment of home or work;
Behavioral and demographic characteristics;
Goals.

Synthesizing the goals is the most important part of this step, since it is these goals that we want the application we are designing meets. One way of inferring the goals is to observe the actions people do - from each grouping that led to a pattern—do and for what reason: how are they acting and behaving today? What do they want to achieve with these actions?

The objectives, in a certain way, have to be related to the product to be developed. If it is not directly related, it is irrelevant to direct product design.

In his book Emotional Design, Donald (Don) Normam defines three cognitive processes: visceral (reaction to stimuli before action), behavioral (main focus of interaction designers) and reflexive (conscious reflection of past experiences).

Alan Cooper translates each of these cognitive processes respectively as goals of experience, end and life. Let's look at each one of them:

Experience goals describe how someone wants to feel using the product. Typically a persona has no more than one such goal, or even none, unless it is an entertainment product. Examples of experience objectives are:

Feel smart
Have fun
Achieve a sense of fullness

The final goals describe what a person wants to accomplish; and the product may help directly or indirectly in this. They are most useful in determining the design of the product and usually a persona can have three to five final goals. Examples of final objectives are:

Finish my work until 5 pm
To be proactive rather than reactive
Discover problems before they become critical

Life goals are more useful in consumer oriented products, but it is not appropriate to use them unless achieving that goal is the primary motivation for using the product. Usually identifying one or no life goal in a persona is considered common. Examples of life goals are:

Retire at age 45
To be the next Madonna
To be promoted to art director

Responding to life goals makes the difference between a satisfied user and a loyal and fanatical user.