Page 88 - Experience Based Co-design - a toolkit for Australia

SCENARIOS AND PERSONAS
WHAT
A scenario is a realistic description of how a service works. A persona is a realistic description of a type of client.
Example:
Imagine an elderly patient with poor eyesight arriving by taxi at the front door of an outpatient clinic. He moves slowly inside (he has a walking stick) and sees a long queue in front of the reception.
The fuller persona would give more detail about his condition, needs, abilities and so his likely response to the queue.
A full scenario would describe the different things that might happen next as he tries to get the service he needs. For example, does he join the queue without question, or does he stop and look around to see if it is the right queue? If he looks around, what signage might he be able to see, if any? Or does a staff member greet him and offer help?
Scenarios and personas work best when based on realistic ‘extremes’, as in the example given.
They help you notice and amplify experiences that otherwise go un-noticed. They also prevent you defaulting to the ‘average’ patient or ‘average’ service delivery, which inevitably leads you to making merely ‘average’ improvements!
Scenario and persona descriptions:
WHY
• Help you determine exactly who your improvement needs to work for as well as when, where and how it needs to work to be successful.
• Give you simple, cheap, quick ways to develop improvements.
• Help you experiment with different improvement ideas, judging their value in a
realistic and useful way, but without the need to involve staff and patients.
Use scenarios and personas when:
WHEN
• You have a solid understanding of different types of patients and their experiences (you may have used patient shadowing, patient journey mapping and/or patient stories to gain this).
• Developing any improvement ideas to keep improvements focused and grounded.
• During the early stages of prototyping.
Adapted with permission from healthcodesign.org.nz