11-15, 15:30–15:45 (Asia/Beirut), The in Between
The session will introduce participants to the creative use of user personae applied to accessibility: The internet is very different things to different people, and something we know little about when it comes to the most vulnerable among us. They are just as dependent on the internet as us, yet use it in ways we don't suspect.
The presenter will show user personae profiles, discuss the methodology used to produce them, and draw practical conclusions that can be applied to web development and civic projects targeting the most vulnerable.
The session will include four contrasting user personae profiles, all of which are relevant to Lebanon: a Bengali migrant worker, a Syrian refugee housewife, a member of the LGBTI community, along with a Syrian e-saleswoman waiting to join her husband in Europe. These constructs are derived from fieldwork we conducted among such constituencies, as part of our research.
These profiles will be presented as slides, with a strong visual and biographic component. The slides enable the audience to understand the most counter-intuitive aspects of the digital lives of the concerned. The obstacles they encounter as they access the internet, and the fixes they resort to, are included too.
This short presentation will end on a brief interactive exchange with the audience, to collect immediate reactions, and suggestions as to how to take this kind of research further.
Peter founded Synaps to distill almost 20 years experience working in and on the Arab world. During this itinerary, which led him from Iraq to Lebanon, then Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and back to Lebanon, he combined academia with long-form journalism, consultancies, and a ten-year tenure with the International Crisis Group. A French citizen born in England, he studied biology before switching to political science and sociology, and lived happily ever after.