The User Is Always Right: Making Personas Work for Your Site

Copyright © 2007 Molecular, Inc. | www.molecular.com | Linked by Isobar 1

Steve Mulder

Making Personas Work for Your Site


Business results depend on satisfying users

You are not your user

Learning about users requires direct contact

Knowledge about users must be actionable

Decisions should be based on users


Personas bring focus


Personas build

empathy


Personas encourage consensus


Personas create efficiency


Personas lead to better decisions

Personas for DesignInformation architecture, interaction design, visual design, content development, user testing

Personas for MarketingFramework for marketing campaigns, branding, messaging, market research

Personas for StrategyFramework for business decisions,offerings, channel usage, features


Creating Personas


The Landscape of User Research and Testing

User Interviews

QUALITATIVE (INSIGHTS)

GOALS & ATTITUDES

(ASPIRATIONAL)

BEHAVIORS

(ACTUAL)

User Surveys

Usability Testing

Site Traffic/Log File Analysis

Eye Tracking

Field Studies (Contextual Inquiry)

Shadow Shopping (Shop-Along)

Intercepts

Customer Support Data

Card Sorting

Focus Groups

Diary/Journal Studies

Participatory Design

User Advisory Panel

Automated Usability Testing

User Reports

Collages

QUANTITATIVE (VALIDATION)A/B Testing


Qualitative Personas


User Interviews

• Cross-section of online customers, offline customers, non-customers, other audiences

• 15 interviews is a good starting point• Informal, loosely structured conversations


User Interviews: Topics

• History with the company• Intro to company, usage/purchase history, early impressions

• Domain experience and knowledge• Domain expertise, competitors, share of wallet

• Goals and behaviors• Needs/triggers for usage, typical process, channel usage,

feature and content usage, gaps, wish list

• Attitudes and motivators• Description of experience, likes/dislikes, influencers,

psychological drivers

• Opportunities• Reaction to new ideas, features, content, improvements

• Observation of actual behavior (field studies, usability tests)


Segmentation

Goals

Behaviors

Attitudes


Personas

Understand how people will actually use the site

Segmentation: Marketing vs. Personas

Marketing

Sell to people

Age

IncomeGender

Otherdemographics

Goals

Behaviors

Attitudes


Segmentation by Goals

What are different people trying to do on the site?

Hierarchy of Goals

Other goals:• Buy commercial property• Find an apartment• Sell a house

Be happy

Be independent

Buy a house

Understand process

Learn about points

Motivator

Motivator

Goal

Need

Task

• Get a mortgage loan• Get insurance• Find a moving company


Segmentation by Behaviors and Attitudes

How do users differ based on what they do or how they think?

Behaviors:• Frequency of real

estate activity• Frequency of visits to

the site• Channel usage for

various needs• Use of competitors

Attitudes:• Knowledge about

real estate• Motivators affecting

users’ likelihood to buy or sell

• Perception of the company/brand

• Etc.



Explore different combinationsF

requ

enc

y o

f rea

l est

ate

act

ivity

Knowledge about real estate

The risk-taker who thinks he knows more than he actually does

The novice who needs a lot of guidance

The pro who wants to use site tools and doesn’t need help

The smart one who wants validation of what she already knows



FedEx segmentationL

eve

l of p

repa

ratio

n

Desired level of personal interaction

Me


Segmentation: The Tests

Your segments should…• Explain key differences you’ve

observed among users• Be different enough from

each other• Feel like real people• Be described quickly• Cover all users• Clearly affect decision making


Qualitative Personas with Quantitative Validation


Surveys


Surveys: Who

• Cross-section of users• Goal: 100+ completions per segment

• 17,000 emails @ 3% completion rate = 500 completions

• Incentives and reminders can boost completion rate


Surveys: What

• Questions to gather data on segmentation attributes (dependent variables)• Goal for visiting site (buy home, find apartment, etc.)

• Frequency of site visits for each possible user goal• Importance of each possible goal to the user

• Knowledge of real estate• Previous real estate experiences• User’s self-perception of real estate expertise

• Questions to test the segmentation against (independent variables)• Other behaviors (site/channel usage, feature usage, etc.)• Other attitudes (toward company, about self, etc.)• New features and content to test


Surveys: What

Recommended order of questions:• Current goals, usage, and behavior, including channel

usage• History with the site and company• User of or importance of existing features and content• Satisfaction with existing features and content• Importance of new features and content• Psychographic questions• Demographic questions


Site Traffic Analysis

• Entry pages• Referrers• Exit pages• Common paths• Feature usage• Search terms• Conversion rate• Duration• Frequency


CRM Data

• Annual spending• Frequency of purchase• Products or services purchased• Channel usage• Customer support usage• Length of time as a customer


Quantitative Nirvana: Complete User Portrait

• Survey data

What the user does

• Site traffic analysis• CRM data• Self-reported survey data

What the user says

What the user is worth

• CRM data• Self-reported

survey data


Testing the Segmentation

Cross-tabs (pivot tables) in Excel


Quantitative Personas


Quantitative Segmentation


Making Personas Real


Components of a Persona


Photo

www.sxc.hu www.morguefile.com www.istockphoto.com


Scenarios

Francis and Michael have agreed that she’ll take charge of learning more about the home-buying process. She goes online, does a Google search for “Atlanta real estate,” and follows a link to the site’s home page. She sees that she can search for houses from the home page, so just for fun, she does a quick Atlanta search to see what kinds of houses show up. There are lots of houses in many different neighborhoods, and she easily narrows her results down to the area where she and Michael live, using a map. There are still many results, and she’s not quite sure which search options to use to narrow the search further. Then she notices a link for first-time home buyers and follows, it hoping for basic how-to information.

The link takes Francis to a step-by-step tutorial that explains the whole process, and she immediately feels like she’s found the right site from which to begin her house search. She carefully reads some articles for first-time home buyers, taking notes as she reads. She bookmarks other articles she wants to go back and read later. She also comes across the site’s calculator and starts trying different combinations of numbers to find out what she and Michael can afford. She particularly likes the glossary of terms so that she can finally figure out what “points” are and learn more about different types of mortgages. After an hour and a half of reading, her brain is full, and she shuts her computer down for the day, feeling like she got an excellent start.

The next day, she comes back to the site to look up information specific to Atlanta neighborhoods and finds lots of information on each. She’s able to focus on five neighborhoods that look particularly good. The fun begins that night, when she takes Michael through all that she has learned, and they set up a regular schedule for looking at online house listings.


Using Personas


Persona Document


Persona Cards


Lifesize Cutouts


Persona Cubicle


Other Ideas for Keeping Personas Alive

• Posters• Tchotchkes• Day-in-the-life photos, audio diaries, etc.• Role-playing• Quizzes• Staple to documents• Email addresses


Business Strategy


Features and Functionality


Features and Functionality: Brainstorming

Francis’ Goals

Learn about the home-buying process

Find out what she can afford

Discover what areas of Atlanta are desirable

Find a house that matches her criteria

Business Objectives

Visit the site often

Register for email alerts and newsletters

Subscribe to premium services

Recommend the site to others

Possible Features and Content

Introductory how-to articles

Glossary of jargon

Videos and podcasts

Success stories

Q&A with experts

Message board

Blogs

Rent vs. own calculator

Local experts to call/meet

Checklists to print

Interactive quizzes

Common mistakes

Animated cartoons

Book recommendations


Features and Functionality: Prioritizing


Structure


Structure: Task Analysis

1. Search for houses from home page

a. Enter location by city and state, or zip code

b. Enter price range

c. Enter number of bedrooms and/or bathrooms

d. Submit search

2. View and narrow results

1. Browse first page of results: photo, price, address, basic stats, and description

2. Click to show results on map

3. Click map to narrow results to one neighborhood

4. Browse new results

3. Read tutorial

1. Click link for first-time home buyers

2. Read landing page for learning area

3. Click teaser for step-by-step tutorial

And so on…


Structure: Use Cases

Search for Houses

Level: User goal

Primary actor: Francis the First-Time Home Buyer

Preconditions: • Francis arrives at home page or House Search landing page

Main success scenario:

1. Francis enters city and state or zip code.

2. System uses auto-completion to show options below search field as Francis types. System shows up to 10 matching city names in order of number of homes for sale in each city. Francis can click a city name to select that city.

3. Francis selects minimum and maximum price values from drop-down menus.

4. System validates selected values.

5. Francis selects number of bedrooms and bathrooms from drop-down menus.

6. Francis submits search.

7. System validates required fields before submitting query.


Structure: Information Architecture


Structure: Navigation


Structure: Site Search


Content

• Articles or product descriptions• Instructional text• Documentation and help• Error messages• Imagery• Sound• Video


Content: Word Cloud


Design


Design: Mood Board


Design: Appealing to All Personas


Testing and Measuring Success

• QA process• Usability testing• Log files• Survey• Predictive modeling


Steve [email protected]

PracticalPersonas.com

Thanks!

The User Is Always Right: Making Personas Work for Your Site

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