Considering non-human stakeholders in a design process

Non-human personas are an extension of the original personas method12. They allow designers to bring the perspectives of non-human beings into the design process and to consider them when making design decisions.

It is increasingly becoming clear that focusing solely on human needs and values has detrimental effects on the planet and humanity’s continued existence. Non-human personas address the limitations of human-centred methods by giving non-human stakeholders a voice in the design process3.

Along with others[^5][^6][^7], we have highlighted the ability of non-human personas to capture the concerns of all living beings and bringing their perspectives to the table when making design decisions.

Capturing the voice of non-human stakeholders

To address these challenges and to support the adoption of non-human personas in design projects, we propose a four-step framework.

Diagram showing the four steps of the framework which are: 1) Identifying non-human stakeholders, 2) Creating non-human personas, 3) Forming coalitions via middle-out engagement, 4) Employing the non-human personas and their coalitions. Arrows indicate that this is an iterative process, where the designer moves forward and backwards to improve the non-human persona representation.

The four steps of the non-human personas framework and the generative process for creating and improving the representation of non-human stakeholders / Source: 3

The framework suggests the collection of primary data about non-human species through this coalition, which consists of representatives from the top and the bottom. This is akin to the two Whanganui River guardians being representatives from the New Zealand Government and the local Māori tribe of Whanganui.

Diagram showing the middle-out approach with organisations from the top and from the bottom coming together in the middle to form a coalition that acts as representative voice to speak on behalf of the identified non-human stakeholders.

The middle-out engagement approach for forming a coalition that is able to speak on behalf of an identified non-human stakeholder / Source: 3

Organisations in charge of top-down actions may not have the same level of knowledge about a local living system as, for example, local community groups. But their “buy-in” is critical for the efficacy and long-term success of an initiative since they control regulations, policies and other governance aspects.

Once formed, the coalition can be engaged through participatory methods, such as workshops and focus groups. A key outcome from these participatory sessions is the collective development of a descriptive narrative of the behaviour of the identified non-human persona. These narrative descriptions provide rich data that bring the persona to life14, ideally through a vivid story concerning the needs of the persona in the context of the design intervention5.

References

Non-Human Personas: Including Nature in the Participatory Design of Smart Cities

  1. Cooper A. (2004). Inmates Are Running the Asylum, The: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity. Sams Publishing. ↩ ↩2

  2. Adlin T., Pruitt J. (2010). The Essential Persona Lifecycle: Your Guide to Building and Using Personas, Morgan Kaufmann. ↩

  3. Tomitsch M., Borthwick M., Ahmadpour N., Baki Kocaballi A., Cooper C., Frawley J., Hepburn L.-A., Loke L., Núñez-Pacheco C., Straker K., Wrigley C. (2021). Design Think Make Break Repeat: A Handbook of Methods (Revised Edition), BIS Publishers. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  4. Grudin, J., Pruitt, J. (2002). Personas, participatory design and product development: An infrastructure for engagement. In Proceedings of the Participatory Design Conference (Vol. 2). ACM. ↩

  5. Miaskiewicz, T., Kozar, K. A. (2011). Personas and user-centered design: How can personas benefit product design processes?. Design studies, 32(5). Elsevier. ↩

👋 Hej, I am Julian Peters. But many people call me Jupe.

As an independent consultant I help clients design strategies, digital products and user experiences. Straight from my hometown Dinslaken. If you enjoyed this content, share the link, toot me or subscribe to my RSS feed.