The User Is Always Right: Making Personas Work for Your Site
How do we ensure that our Web sites actually give users what they need and deliver results? Personas bring user research to life and make it actionable, ensuring we're making the right decisions based on the right information. Discover the latest techniques for creating personas, including advice on conducting user interviews, new methods for applying quantitative research such as surveys and log file analysis, approaches for generating persona segmentation, and fun ideas for making your personas real. It's time to take personas to the next level.
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- Slide 1: Steve Mulder
Making Personas Work for Your Site 1
Copyright © 2007 Molecular, Inc. | www.molecular.com | Linked by Isobar
- Slide 2: Decisions should be based on users
Knowledge about users must be actionable
Learning about users requires direct contact
You are not your user
Business results depend on satisfying users
2
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- Slide 3: 3
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- Slide 4: 4
Copyright © 2007 Molecular, Inc. | www.molecular.com | Linked by Isobar
- Slide 5: Personas bring focus
5
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- Slide 6: Personas
build
empathy
6
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- Slide 7: Personas encourage consensus
7
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- Slide 8: Personas
create efficiency
8
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- Slide 9: 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, market research
Personas for Design
Information architecture, interaction design, visual design,
content development, user testing
9
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- Slide 10: Creating Personas
10
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- Slide 11: The Landscape of User Research and Testing
QUALITATIVE (INSIGHTS)
Collages Diary/Journal
Studies
User Interviews Shadow Shopping
(Shop-Along) Usability Testing
Focus Groups Field Studies
User Advisory
(Contextual Inquiry)
Panel
Eye Tracking
User Reports
Participatory Design
Intercepts
Card Sorting
BEHAVIORS
GOALS & ATTITUDES
(ACTUAL)
(ASPIRATIONAL)
Customer Support Data
Automated Usability Testing
User Surveys
Site Traffic/
Log File Analysis
A/B Testing
QUANTITATIVE (VALIDATION)
11
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- Slide 12: Qualitative Personas
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- Slide 13: User Interviews
Cross-section of online customers, offline customers,
•
non-customers, other audiences
15 interviews is a good starting point
•
Informal, loosely structured conversations by Isobar
•
13
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- Slide 14: 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)
•
14
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- Slide 15: Segmentation
Behaviors
Goals
Attitudes
15
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- Slide 16: Segmentation: Marketing vs. Personas
Marketing Personas
Age
Behaviors
Income
Goals
Gender
Other
Attitudes
demographics
Sell to people Understand how people
will actually use the site
16
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- Slide 17: Segmentation by Goals
What are different people trying to do on the site?
Hierarchy of Goals
Be happy Motivator
Be independent Motivator
Buy a house Goal
Understand process Need
Learn about points Task
Other goals:
Get a mortgage loan
Buy commercial property •
•
Get insurance
Find an apartment •
•
Find a moving company
Sell a house •
•
17
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- Slide 18: Segmentation by Behaviors and Attitudes
How do users differ based on what they do or how they think?
Behaviors: Attitudes:
Frequency of real Knowledge about
• •
estate activity real estate
Frequency of visits to Motivators affecting
• •
the site users’ likelihood to
buy or sell
Channel usage for
•
various needs Perception of the
•
company/brand
Use of competitors
•
Etc.
•
18
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- Slide 19: Segmentation by Behaviors and Attitudes
Explore different combinations
Frequency of real estate activity
The risk-taker who thinks The pro who wants to
he knows more than he use site tools and doesn’t
actually does need help
The novice who needs a The smart one who
lot of guidance wants validation of what
she already knows
Knowledge about real estate
19
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- Slide 20: Segmentation by Behaviors and Attitudes
FedEx segmentation
Level of preparation
Me
Desired level of personal interaction
20
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- Slide 21: 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
•
21
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- Slide 22: Qualitative Personas with Quantitative Validation
22
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- Slide 23: Surveys
23
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- Slide 24: 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
•
24
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- Slide 25: Surveys: What
Questions to gather data on segmentation attributes
•
(dependent variables)
Goal for visiting site (buy hom find apartment, etc.)
e,
•
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
•
25
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- Slide 26: 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
•
26
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- Slide 27: Site Traffic Analysis
Entry pages
•
Referrers
•
Exit pages
•
Common paths
•
Feature usage
•
Search terms
•
Conversion rate
•
Duration
•
Frequency
•
27
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- Slide 28: CRM Data
Annual spending
•
Frequency of purchase
•
Products or services purchased
•
Channel usage
•
Customer support usage
•
Length of time as a customer
•
28
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- Slide 29: Quantitative Nirvana: Complete User Portrait
Survey data
•
What the
user says
What the
What the
user is CRM data
•
user does
worth
Self-reported
•
survey data
Site traffic analysis
•
CRM data
•
Self-reported survey2007 Molecular, Inc.
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• 29
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- Slide 30: Testing the Segmentation
Cross-tabs (pivot tables) in Excel
30
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- Slide 31: Quantitative Personas
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- Slide 32: Quantitative Segmentation
32
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- Slide 33: Quantitative Segmentation
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- Slide 34: Quantitative Segmentation
34
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- Slide 35: Making Personas Real
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- Slide 36: Components of a Persona
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- Slide 37: Photo
www.sxc.hu www.morguefile.com www.istockphoto.com 37
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- Slide 38: 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.
38
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- Slide 39: Using Personas
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- Slide 40: Persona Document
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- Slide 41: Persona Cards
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- Slide 42: Lifesize Cutouts
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- Slide 43: Persona Cubicle
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- Slide 44: Other Ideas for Keeping Personas Alive
Posters
•
Tchotchkes
•
Day-in-the-life photos, audio diaries, etc.
•
Role-playing
•
Quizzes
•
Staple to documents
•
Email addresses
•
44
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- Slide 45: Business Strategy
45
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- Slide 46: Features and Functionality
46
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- Slide 47: Features and Functionality: Brainstorming
Francis’ Goals Possible Features and Content Business Objectives
Learn about the Introductory how-to articles Visit the site often
home-buying Glossary of jargon Register for email
process alerts and newsletters
Videos and podcasts
Find out what she Subscribe to premium
Success stories
can afford services
Q&A with experts
Discover what Recommend the site
Message board
areas of Atlanta to others
are desirable Blogs
Find a house that Rent vs. own calculator
matches her Local experts to call/meet
criteria
Checklists to print
Interactive quizzes
Common mistakes
Animated cartoons
Book recommendations
47
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- Slide 48: Features and Functionality: Prioritizing
48
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- Slide 49: Structure
49
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- Slide 50: Structure: Task Analysis
Search for houses from home page
1.
Enter location by city and state, or zip code
a.
Enter price range
b.
Enter number of bedrooms and/or bathrooms
c.
Submit search
d.
View and narrow results
2.
Browse first page of results: photo, price, address, basic stats, and
1.
description
Click to show results on map
2.
Click map to narrow results to one neighborhood
3.
Browse new results
4.
Read tutorial
3.
Click link for first-time home buyers
1.
Read landing page for learning area
2.
Click teaser for step-by-step tutorial
3.
And so on…
50
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- Slide 51: 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:
Francis enters city and state or zip code.
7.
System uses auto-completion to show options below search field as Francis
8.
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.
Francis selects minimum and maximum price values from drop-down menus.
9.
validates selected values.
10.System
selects number of bedrooms and bathrooms from drop-down menus.
11.Francis
submits search.
12.Francis
validates required fields before submitting query.
13.System
51
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- Slide 52: Structure: Information Architecture
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- Slide 53: Structure: Information Architecture
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- Slide 54: Structure: Navigation
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- Slide 55: Structure: Site Search
55
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- Slide 56: Content
Articles or product descriptions
•
Instructional text
•
Documentation and help
•
Error messages
•
Imagery
•
Sound
•
Video
•
56
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- Slide 57: Content: Word Cloud
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- Slide 58: Design
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- Slide 59: Design: Mood Board
59
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- Slide 60: Design: Appealing to All Personas
60
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- Slide 61: Testing and Measuring Success
QA process
•
Usability testing
•
Log files
•
Survey
•
Predictive modeling
•
61
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- Slide 62: Thanks!
Steve Mulder
smulder@molecular.com
PracticalPersonas.com
62
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