Basic senior personas: a representative design tool covering the spectrum of European older adults

The persona method is a powerful approach to focus on needs and characteristics of target users, keeping complex user data,numbers and diagrams alive during the whole design cycle.However, the development of prosperous personas requires a considerable amount of time, effort and specific skills. This paper introduces the development of a set of 30 basic senior personas, covering a broad range of characteristics of European older adults, following a quantitative development approach. The aim of this tool is to support researchers and developers in extending empathy for their target users when developing ICT solutions for the benefit of older adults. The main innovation lies in the representativeness of the basic senior personas. The personas build on multifaceted quantitative data from a single source including micro-level information from roughly 12,500 older individuals living in different European countries. The resulting personas may be applied in their basic form but are extendable to specific contexts. Also, the suggested tool addresses the drawbacks of current existing personas describing older adults: being representative and cost-efficient. The basic senior personas, a filter tool, a manual and templates for "persona marketing" articles are available for free online under http://elderlypersonas.cure.at.