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Disruption and design

Put people first

1.10 Persona creation in practice

A person wearing an elaborate Venetian mask with jewels and feathers. Only the person’s eyes, lips and chin are visible.Venetian mask disguise

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Imagine you’re planning to design a free online course such as this one, focused on developing skills in being an online educator. You want to attract learners from across the globe and you want it to be appealing and relevant to as many people as possible. You are pitching the course at Masters level in the knowledge that many education professionals, or aspiring educators, will have existing undergraduate, and maybe postgraduate qualifications.

  • Use the personas template available via the link at the bottom of this page as the basis for creating one persona, representing a potential learner for your course. Give the persona a name and add some information about them.
  • Now share your persona with your peers. Note just one way in which the design of your course might accommodate the needs, background or characteristics of your persona.
  • Finally, comment on someone else’s persona, again suggesting a way in which the course design might accommodate their needs, background or other characteristics.

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