Introduction to Personas and UsabilityTest schema extensions

Schema authors: Stefan Negru and Sabin C. Buraga (Faculty of Computer Science, A. I. Cuza University of Iasi, Romania).

Last updated: 8 January 2013

Modeling approach:

Thing
- Persona
- Scenario
- Context
- Disability
- ProductTesting
  - UsabilityTest
- Workflow
  - Task

Our proposed extensions to schema.org are best used with the following templates:

Extending the Schema:

Disability type could be part of MedicalHealth schema proposal.
ProductTesting is a general item type that encompasses both Software and Hardware testing concepts and properties (e.g. Quality Assurance, Unit Testing, Debug Report etc.).
ProductTesting type could be included in SoftwareApplication Schema and/or schema.org/Product.
Workflow item type can be extended to encompass classes and properties from the IntelLEO Workflow Ontology like: Project, Meeting and others

Articles Published:

"Towards a Conceptual Model for Describing the Personas Methodology" (in English) - ICCP 2012 Conference Proceedings, IEEE Computer Society Press 2012 Stefan Negru and Sabin Buraga
"Persona Modeling Process: from Microdata-Based Templates to Specific Web Ontologies" (in English), KEOD 2012 Conference Proceedings, part of IC3K conference, SciTePress 2012 Stefan Negru and Sabin Buraga
"Personas Method in the Context of Semantic Web" (in Romanian), RoCHI 2012 Conference Proceedings, MatrixRom 2012 Stefan Negru and Sabin Buraga

Examples:

Micodata schema applied to Personas and Usability Test Plan Templates:

Personas Document Template zip archive
Usability Test Plan Template zip archive

To make sense how the proposed schema might be used, see the examples below:

Simple HTML:

<article>
    <div>
      <h3>Type: <strong>Primary</strong></h3>
      <figure>
        <img src="teacher.jpg" alt="persona image" />
      </figure>
      <div>       
        <h4>Name: <span>John</span> <span>Doe</span></h4>
          <h5>Background</h5>
          <ul>
            <li><strong>Date of Birth:</strong> 
                <time datetime="1980-10-23">10/23/1980</time></li>
            <li><strong>Gender:</strong> <span>Male</span></li>
            <li>
                <strong>Location:</strong> <span>Iasi, Romania</span></li>
            <li><strong>Work place:</strong> 
                <span >FII UAIC</span>, <span >Teacher</span></li>
            <li >
                <strong>School:</strong>  <span>FII UAIC</span></li>
            <li><strong>Technology Level:</strong><span>Advanced</span></li>
          </ul>
      </div>
    </div>
    <div>
      <div>
        <div>
          <h5>Main Points</h5>
          <p>John is a teacher at computer scicence at UAIC and has advanced computer skills. 
          For example:</p>
          <ul>
            <li>John has developed such applications and has programming knowledge</li>
            <li>John dislikes applications that are not well structured;</li>
            <li>Working environment: Desktop - Mac OS, Mobile: Iphone OS;</li>           
          </ul>
        </div>
        <div>
          <h5>Goals</h5>
          <p>Goals are the reasons users perform tasks, not the tasks.</p>
          <ul>
            <li>Practical Goals: <span>share courses</span></li>
            <li>Personal Goals: <span>organize work information and tasks</span></li>
            <li>Business Goals: <span>increase student enrollment</span></li>
          </ul>
        </div>

With Microdata:

<article itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Persona">
    <div>
      <h3>Type: <strong itemprop="personaType">Primary</strong></h3>
      <figure>
        <img  itemprop="image" src="teacher.jpg" alt="persona image" />
      </figure>
      <div>       
        <h4>Name: <span itemprop="givenName">John</span> <span itemprop="familyName">Doe</span></h4>
          <h5>Background</h5>
          <ul>
            <li><strong>Date of Birth:</strong> 
                <time itemprop="birthDate" datetime="1980-10-23">10/23/1980</time></li>
            <li><strong>Gender:</strong> <span itemprop="gender">Male</span></li>
            <li itemprop="location" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Place">
                <strong>Location:</strong> <span itemprop="name">Iasi, Romania</span></li>
            <li itemprop="worksFor" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Organization"><strong>Work place:</strong> 
                <span itemprop="name">FII UAIC</span>, <span itemprop="jobTitle">Teacher</span></li>
            <li itemprop="alumniOf" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/EducationalOrganization">
                <strong>School:</strong>  <span itemprop="name">FII UAIC</span></li>
            <li><strong>Technology Level:</strong><span itemprop="technicalLevel">Advanced</span></li>
          </ul>
      </div>
    </div>
    <div>
      <div>
        <div>
          <h5>Main Points</h5>
          <p>John is a teacher at computer scicence at UAIC and has advanced computer skills. 
          For example:</p>
          <ul>
            <li itemprop="mainPoint">John has developed such applications and has programming knowledge</li>
            <li itemprop="mainPoint">John dislikes applications that are not well structured;</li>
            <li itemprop="mainPoint">Working environment: Desktop - Mac OS, Mobile: Iphone OS;</li>           
          </ul>
        </div>
        <div>
          <h5>Goals</h5>
          <p>Goals are the reasons users perform tasks, not the tasks.</p>
          <ul>
            <li>Practical Goals: <span itemprop="endGoal">share courses</span></li>
            <li>Personal Goals: <span itemprop="experienceGoal">organize work information and tasks</span></li>
            <li>Business Goals: <span itemprop="businessGoal">increase student enrollment</span></li>
          </ul>
        </div>

Acknowledgment: This work was partially supported by the European Social Fund in Romania, under the responsibility of the Managing Authority for the Sectorial Operational Program for Human Resources Development 2007-2013 [grant POSDRU/107/1.5/S/78342]. - more info at www.docpaideia.ro