Microsoft Is Building Windows Personas and Archetypes

Microsoft is building Windows personas and archetypes. The initiative is designed around the Windows Software Development Kit, and is an initiative aimed at connecting the Microsoft efforts with its customer base. In this context, the Redmond company will be able to tailor the future versions of the Windows SDK specifically to the customers. Not an easy task at all, considering the install base of the Windows SDK. Personas will mean in the end that forthcoming versions of the Windows SDK will benefit from resources and priorities addressing directly specific target audiences.

"With over a million downloads of our SDK for Vista and .NET Framework 3.0, we have a huge customer base engaged in vastly different development scenarios. By designing for an archetype whose behavior patterns and goals are understood, we hope to satisfy the larger group of developers represented by that persona. Persona-based design is just one component of our development process," revealed Karin Meier, Windows SDK Samples & Community Product Manager, and one of the two responsible for the Personas project, along with Pat Litherland, Program Manager Windows Development.

"Some of the day to day decisions are based on assumptions we have about what are customers do with the end result of our work and this project aims to get crystal clear about what exactly customers need from the Windows SDK to do what it is they do. Before we can provide the right SDK to help customers accomplish their goals we need to first understand what it is our customers 'do'," Litherland added.

Via Personas, Microsoft will put together abstract representations of users, a concept that initially originated in marketing, but it will be applied to the Windows SDK. The Redmond company already has in a place projects that tap users for data gathering, but Personas will complement the resources already in place.