Persona interview videos help software engineering students practice designing for real users rather than an assumed “average user.” Students have the opportunity to analyze personas with different ages, backgrounds, language preferences, technology experiences, accessibility needs, privacy concerns, and daily habits to identify user goals, frustrations, usability barriers, and design requirements.
Embedding persona interviews as a learning activity supports cross-disciplinary skills and dispositions for computing professionals, including ethical reasoning, communication, and accessibility awareness. While the current videos were created using Synthesia AI for practice to support the curriculum that may not have opportunities for students to engage with users, real user interviews are recommended because they provide more authentic and context-specific insights, but AI-generated personas can help students build early skills in analyzing users and connecting persona insights to journey maps.
Video #1 Young Adult User
Video #2 Elderly User
Video #3 Adult User
Disciplines: Computer Science
Focal area: Cross-disciplinary skills
Resource type: Video
Cross-disciplinary skills: Ethical Reasoning, Communication, Accessibility Awareness
Dispositions: Being Ethical, Being Empathetic, Being Open to Differences
Education level: Any
Descriptors: User-Experience Research
Language: English
License: Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY-NC)
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grants No. 2111097 and No. 2417492.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.