An empirical investigation of the influence of persona with personality traits on conceptual design

Persona, an archetypical user, is increasingly becoming a popular tool for Software Engineers to design and communicate with stakeholders. A persona is a representative of a class of end users of a product or service. However, the majority of personas presented in the literature do not take into consideration that the personality of users affects the way they interact with a product or service. This study empirically explores variations in conceptual design based on the personality of a persona. We carried out two studies in Australia and one study in Denmark. We presented four personas with different personalities to 91 participants who collectively completed 218 design artifacts. The results from the studies indicate that the participants' views and prioritization of the needs and system requirements were influenced by the personality traits of the provided personas. For an introverted and emotionally unstable personality, inclusion of confidence building and socializer design features had a higher priority compared with the identified requirements for an extravert and emotionally stable personality. The findings support the proposition that personas with personality traits can aid software engineers to produce conceptual designs tailored to the needs of specific personalities.