1. Draft Personas

GNOME is for users who:

• don't care about technical implementations
• want to get stuff done
• use computers as a means instead of a goal
• actually, they dislike computers really

1.1. Plumber – Joe, 63 years old

• From Ohio, USA
• computer neophyte
• Independent 2 person business (1 other person employed)
• Keeps track of appointments
• Customer billing
• Needs to keep track of taxes
• Owns his own company, but pays too much taxes
• uses the internet mainly to buy goods for his company
• needs to keep track of sales records
• but also guns for his spare time
• has dyslexia, slight motor contol issues (making typing challanging), and astigmatism (so he needs a large monitor at a low resolution to see things properly).

1.2. Graphic Designer – Lilly, 25 years old

• From Germany
• has boyfriend
• moderate computer user (expert in her domain)
• other designers will be covered with a merge between graphic designer (similar design tools) and office worker (documents, etc.)
• Likes photography

1.3. Web developer – Thomas, 18 years old

• From Hong Kong
• single
• Advanced computer user
• Web design (inherits some stuff from graphic designer here)
• General web development, with various languages, such as HTML/CSS/JavaScript, Ruby, PHP, Java (inherits from a programmer, somewhat, but not so convoluted (with GNU-based tools, package management, and other command-line junk etc.))
• needs to copy files back and forth between local machine and remote server (sometimes not the whole directory, but individual files)

1.4. Office worker – Paul, 34 years old

• From the UK
• slight computer knowledge (often needs to ask for help from the IT dept.)
• (manager of a team of 5 or a secretary?)
• is an internet journalist working full time.
• uses office software
• exchanges documents with users of other office software (MS Office Suite, among other things)
• talk to davelargo here, possibly...
• uses E-mail as primary means of communication
• is a manager of a team of 5
• has to write reports
• also blogs in free time
• wants fun games to distract him from office stress
• Married

1.5. Teacher – Patrick, 48 years old

• From Brazil
• intensively uses information websites like Wikipedia, Google Maps, library systems, etc.
• Lesson plans
• writing own lesson plans
• sharing lesson plans with others (back and forth)
• re-using old lesson plans (as there are only so many hours in the day)
• it must be easy to find lesson plans from a year or two ago

• copying and pasting, modifying old lesson plans, saving as new, & filing away the new lesson plans

• Printing
• Wants to use computers in the classroom
• Likes to share stuff with his teenage kids.
• Married

1.6. University Student – Sita, 19 years old

• From India
• Studies Psychology as a first years

• uses Skype (video) & IM as primary means of communication

• Uses Facebook and Twitter a lot
• Important school-related tasks:
• Writes documents
• Collaborates with others on documents

• Calendaring, to keep track of classes & due dates

• Portability of files - it's common for students to be issued with USB sticks nowadays
• Portable computing device (laptops, netbooks, etc.)
• Printing!
• likes gaming, especially flash-based games on Facebook