Personas are hypothetical users which you can use when designing features for your application, to anticipate user interaction based on their goals. One of many problems in software engineering is providing consistent and easy to use user interfaces. How do you know what UI enables your users to get things done? How do you find a solution if you have conflicting interests? How do you build an interface, which doesn't leave decisions about configuration of the UI up to the user.
This talk will offer a solution to these questions by making use of personas. The talk will give an introduction to what personas are, how they can be build and how they can be incorporated in the software design process. First hand experience is shared from the recent addition of personas for Beaker (beaker-project.org)