Recognising diversity of data management approaches towards lifecycle costing through personas

Prompted by the increased interest in and strengthened incentives to apply lifecycle costing (LCC) in the Danish AECO industry, this study aims to improve our understanding of how practitioners may apply new technologies and tools in their design practices. By adopting user-centred design methods, this study explores the diversity of current and potential LCC users as users of technology in general with regard to their characteristics, aspirations and work processes towards data management. The research is based on a single case study analysis of a Danish architectural firm. Data are gathered through mixed methods, including quantitative surveys and qualitative observations and interviews. The findings reveal three user personas: the clip-boarder persona, who manually copies and pastes data from one application to another in order to perform calculations; the spreadsheet expert persona, who prefers to work with spreadsheet-based tools for importing and exporting data between tools; the programmer persona, who uses programming language for integrating data from one application to another. This research provides novel insights on users of technology that can advance integration of LCC in design practices and improve design of more useful adequate LCC tools.