Users should be the driving force behind your website. Yet, often times, companies fall short when it comes to delivering a successful message or experience. Why? Because their design and development team members do not have a shared understanding of who the users are. Personas segment the different users coming to your site into groups with similar motivations, needs, behaviors, and preferences. They create a shared vision amongst your web team and help remove personal influences from the design and development process. When implemented correctly, personas can help with a variety of marketing and business goals and offer tangible results.

1. Who is Your Site for Anyway?
Use Personas to Guide Your
Customer-Centric Journey

2. Anyone participate in online communities or
social networks?

3. The Enforcer
•Also known as your
mod team
•Stand behind the
policy of the company /
community
•Accepts members,
bans bad behavior, and
ensures community is
safe

4. The White Knight
•Comes to the rescue
•Always defends people / brands
•Righteous or optimistic

5. The Devourer
•Consumes information
in massive quantities
•Participates in many
social networking
communities
•Sporadic participation
•Recycle information

6. The Lurker
•Reads, listens, or
watches content
within the
community
•Never contributes
•Visits often

7. Your Personas Won’t Be as Stratified By One
Feature or Attitude

8. Agenda
 What are Personas
 What Personas are Not
 Why Personas
 Approach to Creating Personas
 User Lifecycle
 Applications of Personas
 Persona Examples

9. WHAT ARE PERSONAS?

10. What are Personas
 Not based on one individual - but a
conglomerate of data
 Personas are NOT real people
 However, personas ARE based on real
information -attitudes and behaviors of real
users

11. Understand Your User
• Motivations
• Goals
• Needs
• Decision Making Factors
• People / Influencers
• Expectations
• Preferences
• Demographics Information
• Brand Attitudes

12. Basic Anatomy of a Persona
Description
Quote
Needs /
Objectives
Web History
Demographic

13. WHAT PERSONAS ARE NOT
13

14. Differences Between Market Segments and
Personas
Marketing Personas
Age
Behaviors
Income Gender Goals Usage
Other
demographics
Attitudes
Sell to people Understand how people
will actually use the site
14

15. Differences Between Market Segments
and Personas
Offline
Web
Target
Users
Audience
Those who use your product offline are not always the ones using it online
15

16. What Personas AREPersonas
Marketing
NOT
Market Segments
16

17. Personas CAN BE
Persona 1
Segment A
Encompasses attributes of
Segments A & C
Segment Segment
D C
Persona 2
Combinations of
cross segments to
Segment B encompass all
functionality and
Encompasses attributes of
Segments D & B content needs

18. WHY PERSONAS?
18

19. Allow You to Focus on Things That Matter

20. Allow You to Come to Consensus

21. Allow You to Be More Efficient

22. Personas Lead to Better Decisions
Personas for Strategy
Framework for business decisions,
offerings, channel usage, features
Personas for Marketing
Framework for marketing campaigns, branding,
messaging
Personas for Design
Information architecture, interaction design, visual design,
content development, user testing

23. APPROACH TO CREATING PERSONAS
23

24. Direct Methods of Gathering Data
• Surveys
• Intercept Studies
• User Testing
• Interviews with Users
• Field Studies
Talk to your users.
24

25. Indirect Methods of Gathering Data
• Server Logs
• Customer Service Reps
• Support Logs
• Web Analytics
• 2nd Hand Research
Not as good but better than nothing.
25

26. Qualitative vs. Quantitative
• Need Qualitative and Quantitative Data
• Quantitative = Numbers
– Identify trends and narrow your data
• Qualitative = Focus
– Provide anecdotes to bring your personas to life
26

27. Source: Molecular

28. Segment Personas by Priority

29. Segmentation by Goals
• What are different people trying to do on the
site?

30. Segmentation by Behaviors and
Attitudes
How do users differ based on what they do or how they think?
Behaviors: Attitudes:
• Frequency of visits to the site • Knowledge about subject domain
• Internet experience • Motivators affecting users’ likelihood
• Use of competitors of converting or not
• Perception of the company/brand

31. USER LIFECYCLE
31

32. Example Cycle for Traveler
Planning
(research)
Post
Shopping
Traveling /
(compare)
Evangelism
Active Booking
Traveling (purchase)
Post
Booking /
Based on Interaction Pre Travel
with Website
32

33. Map Needs to Cycle
• What are the User Needs at Each Cycle?
– Website Needs
• Content
• Functionality
• Social Media
– Internal Needs
• Goals
• Tasks
• Influencers
33

34. APPLICATIONS OF PERSONAS
34

35. Features & Functionality : Brainstorming for First Time Buyer
Home Buyer’s Goals: Possible Features and Content: Business Objectives:
• Learn about the home- • Introductory how-to articles •Visit the site often
buying process
• Glossary of jargon •Register for email alerts
• Find out what she can and newsletters
afford • Videos and podcasts
•Subscribe to premium
• Discover what areas of • Success stories
services
Atlanta are desirable • Q&A with experts
•Recommend the site to
• Find a house that matches • Message board others
her criteria
• Blogs
• Rent vs. own calculator
• Local experts to call/meet
• Checklists to print
• Interactive quizzes
• Common mistakes
• Animated cartoons
• Book recommendations

36. Structure
• Sitemap
• User Scenarios
• Workflows
• Wireframe
• Content Mapping

37. Structure: Sitemap

38. Structure: User Scenarios
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.

39. Example Structure: Workflows
Discovery Phase Deliverables
Diagram
Stories
Work Flows

40. Structure: Wireframe
40

41. Content
•Articles or Product Descriptions
•Instructional Text
•Documentation and Help
•Error Messages
•Imagery
•Sound
•Video

42. Content Mapping by Persona
42

43. Design
• Themes
• Imagery
• Color
• Font

44. Professional
44

45. Feminine
45

46. Trendy
46

47. In Summary…
Personas Should…
• Explain Key Differences Observed Among
Users
• Be Different Enough From Each Other
• Feel Like Real People
• Be Described Quickly
• Cover All Users
• Clearly Affect Decision Making

48. Questions?
48