Personas: Where Product Meets User Needs

CHRISTINE PERFETTI PERFETTI MEDIA @CPERFETTI

Agenda

• Greet the user• The five steps for persona

creation• Planning a persona project• Running the user research• Exercise: Conducting a user

interview

• Analyzing the data• Writing your persona

descriptions• Integrating personas into your

development process• Q&A

Prevents grounding

Encourages storytelling

Improves the product and marketing process

Increases empathy

The five steps for creating your personas

• Step 1: Plan the persona project

• Step 2: Conduct a user research study

• Step 3: Analyze the data

• Step 4: Write persona descriptions

• Step 5: Integrate personas into the development process

1. PLAN THE PERSONA PROJECT

Getting Your Team Onboard

The planning meeting

Hold a persona kickoff meeting• Provide an overview of the research and persona process• Discuss and finalize research focus questions • Review product issues and concerns

Who should attend:• Product and UX • Engineering• Marketing• Sales, Support, Customer Success representation

Involve all stakeholders

TODAY’S PROJECT

EliteVacation.com

Focus questions for interviews• What is the typical reason for users’ travel? Business / vacation?• How do users go about planning for a trip? How do they plan for a

trip that is a vacation?• What degree of research do users conduct before booking a

vacation? What type of information are they looking for?• To what degree are vacation travelers interested in packages?

Would they prefer to customize their vacations?• What factors go into the purchase decision?• To what degree is price a consideration when users book their

trips? • How flexible are users on their schedule? Is it fixed or flexible?• Does users typically travel alone or with others?• To what degree is trust of the brand a consideration when booking

a trip through a web site?

2. USER RESEARCH

Gathering Insights to Inform the Product

User research

Contextual interviews in the field‣Excellent technique for gathering insights about users’ goals, needs, desires and motivations

The interview: What we learn• User frustration and problems• How technology fits into users’ life• Domain knowledge• Level of technical expertise• User goals and most important tasks• User preferences and attitudes

Logistics• Typically takes 1-2 hours at the users’ site

• If it’s not possible to meet onsite, we use a remote meeting tool, such as WebEx or GoToMeeting

• Equipment• Video or audio recorder

• When approaching the interview take the mindset of an Apprentice• The user is the expert

The art of the interview• Use body language and encouragers

• Ask for clarification, when necessary

• Summarize key points

• Use open-ended questions to collect information without leading the user

• Use close-ended questions to take control of the interview

Things to avoid• Avoid leading questions

• Users like to respond with a “yes”

• Beware:• Do you like this feature? [INSTEAD: What are your

impressions of this feature?]• Would you be willing to pay more than $500 for this

vacation package?[INSTEAD: What factors go into your decision making when deciding on a package? What degree is price a factor?]

EXERCISE

Draft Your Interview Questions

Review your focus questions• What is the typical reason for users’ travel? Business / vacation?• How do users go about planning for a trip? How do they plan for a

trip that is a vacation?• What degree of research do users conduct before booking a

vacation? What type of information are they looking for?• To what degree are vacation travelers interested in packages?

Would they prefer to customize their vacations?• What factors go into the purchase decision?• To what degree is price a consideration when users book their

trips? • How flexible are users on their schedule? Is it fixed or flexible?• Does users typically travel alone or with others?• To what degree is trust of the brand a consideration when booking

a trip through a web site?

Exercise: Write your interview questions

Sample questions to ask

• How frequently do you travel?• What is the typical reason you travel? [Business / personal]. • How frequently do you take vacations?• Please tell me about a recent vacation you took. [Delve into the

focus question details.]• How did you plan for the trip?• How much research did you conduct before booking the trip, if any?• What are the two things you liked best about the experience?• What are the two things you would most like to improved?

• How much flexibility do you typically have when making your vacation plans? Why?

• What are the most important factors that contribute to your ideal vacation?

• What factors do you consider before booking a trip?• To what degree is the ability to customize a trip a consideration for you? To

what degree is price a consideration when you book your vacation?

EXERCISE

Practice Your Interviewing Skills

Exercise instructions

• Break into groups of 2

• Interviewer• Spend 5-8 minutes interviewing the user• Take notes

• After 8 minutes, switch roles

The interview template

Source: http://www.jeffgothelf.com/blog/using-personas-for-executive-alignment/

3. ANALYZE THE DATA

Synthesizing What You’ve Learned

Identify key user behaviors and attributes

• Write up summaries of each interview• Identify behavioral attributes of users• In what way are the users the same? Different?

Identify important user behavioral attributes

• Examples:• Price sensitivity• Degree of research required to book trip• Need for customization of vacation• Flexibility of travel dates• Travel alone or with many people• Frequency of business versus personal travel

Create scales

Example: Map the users to the scale

Look for patterns (1)

Look for patterns (2)

4. BUILD YOUR PERSONAS

Write Your Persona Descriptions

Persona descriptions: Topics to cover

• Name• Photo• Tagline• Attitudes and preferences• Domain and technical knowledge• User goals• A day in the life / scenarios

Scenarios

• Short stories about a person using you product to accomplish their goals• Describes what they would do and why they

would do it• Independent of interface• Gives the context in which its used

Analyze the date: Start with a persona for “Ezra and Lizzie”

Persona example

5. INTEGRATE YOUR PERSONAS INTO THE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

Workshops

Email the personas and user descriptions

Posters: MailChimp

Integrate personas into your development process

• Integrate personas into requirements documents

• Create the personas before requirements

• Write user stories based on the personas needs

• Integrate personas into regular design reviews• How would X persona tackle this scenario?

• Conduct assessment of product UI and marketing materials from the lens of the persona

QUESTIONS

THANK YOU!