Entry 5 - Persona creation

Initially we developed personas to represent a range of different NHM garden visitors including tourists, researchers and local workers, however our core focus quickly became children aged 7-11, specifically those children who were curious about science and nature but struggled with structured science classes in school. This group felt like they would benefit the most by being in the gardens and understanding the data it collects as children are naturally curious and the gardens have plentiful plants and animals to discover.

The final persona we created to design for was Sara, a primary school student from London who found science difficult and whose parents bought her to the natural history museum to experience science and nature tangibly outside the classroom. 

Sara helped us better understand the type of relationship between the three domains our concept had to create. We knew we wanted to focus on education but wanted it to be starkly different to formal school settings. We also knew the concept needed to keep Sara entertained so she could learn, but we didn’t know how yet. 

Creating the persona forced us to ask questions about inclusion and access: what about children who didn’t live near the gardens and/or for whom getting to the gardens was difficult, should we have an experience for them too?  Although we couldn’t fully answer the questions at that point, we knew they were important to think about as we moved into ideation. 

During this phase of the design process our group started thinking and brainstorming more about the actual concept. Working both in class and outside, meeting in person and online, meant we were sometimes out of sync r.e. where we were in the design process, coming to meetings with different ideas and perspectives. The creation of Sara as the person for whom we were designing served as a concrete reference point to test our ideas against rather than abstract groups like local children.