Introduction
For one of our persona research projects we investigate whether additional photos beyond a single headshot makes a persona profile more informative without confusing the end user.
Methods
We conduct an eye-tracking experiment and qualitative interviews with digital content creators after varying the persona in photos via a single headshot, a headshot, and photo of the persona in different contexts, and a headshot with photos of different people with key persona attributes the gender and age.
Findings
Findings show that contextual photos provide significantly more persona information to end users; however, showing photos of multiple people engenders confusion and lowers informativeness. Also, as anticipated, viewing additional photos requires more co.gnitive focus, which is measured by eye-tracking metrics; these metrics are correlated with levels of informativeness and confusion.