Creating Personas by focusing on your website users

Who we are

Prescient Digital Media is a group of senior intranet and Internet consultants that provide strategic Internet and intranet consulting, planning and communications services to organizations of all sizes.

Today’s Agenda

Complaints, mistakes & problems

Personas – overview & process

Case Study

Personas work because

Q&A

Major complaints

“ We can’t find anything”

“ Everything is buried”

Common mistake

No, we don’t know who our users are

Yes, we know who are users are (kinda)

I’m a user…

Problem

Having a website that has grown organically but it doesn’t appeal or meet anyone’s needs.

What do you mean by “user”?

You may know your users but when you are designing your information architecture and creating a design does everyone understand what you mean by “user”?

Analogy

Let’s replace “website user” with “dog”.

Is there an image of a dog in your head?

Do you think everyone has the same image?

Do you know the Demographics?

For example, Generation & Values

Baby Boomers (1943–1960)

Teamwork , Long hours, Hard work, Recognition

Generation X (1961–1981)

Competence, Ongoing learning, Informality, Feedback

Generation Y (1982–2001)

Achievement, Structure, Collaboration, Mission

Do you know the Special Needs?

What are the specific requirements?

What are the special need requirements?

15 % of the population has some form of accessibility issue.

How are your users using your site?

Are there size, space and access considerations?

That’s a lot to consider

How are you going to ensure that you’re talking about the same user criteria and statistics?

Strategy first

Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat. - Sun Tzu

What are personas?

“ .. personas are not real people…they are hypothetical archetypes of actual users…defined with significant rigor and precision.”

– 1999 Alan Cooper, The inmates are running the asylum

Persona Definition

Personas are fictitious characters that are created to represent the different user types that might use a site.

Persona’s Explained

Personas are synthesized from data collected.

They are captured in descriptions that include behaviour patterns, goals, skills, attitudes, and environment, with a few fictional personal details, including a name, to bring the persona to life.

Benefits of Personas

Personas represent a larger group of users within a construct framework and provide a realistic point of reference.

Personas help provid e focus and a strong sense of what the users’ go als are and thereby provide them direction on how to fulfill those goals.

Creating personas

Step 1: Collect and analyze data

Step 2: Align assumptions, data and user types with goals

Step 3: Create skeletons and rationales

Step 4: Create Personas

Step 5: Choose a Primary Persona

Step 6: Promote their use

Step 7: Use personas

Step 8: Review personas before using again

Step 1 – Collect & analyze data

Conduct

Interviews

Surveys

Focus Groups

Review research

Analyze website metrics

Step 2 – Conduct a workshop

Have participants

Write assumptions

User type & goal, activity or problem

Group the assumptions by user type

Create overarching goals per user type

Align facts & research data with each category

Step 2 – Conduct a workshop © 2009 Prescient Digital Media Student who needs a course to complete a certificate Student thinking about taking courses to improve career User Type: Students Goal: Make courses quick and easy to access Fact: 80% of Students that take these courses are between 21-25 years old

Write assumptions: User type & goal, activity or problem

Group the assumptions by user type

Create overarching goals per user type

Align facts & research data with each category

Gender

Female = 463 (70.5%)

Male = 194 (29.5%)

4 of the personas are female 1 is male

Age

age 35-45 = 225 employees (34.2% of employees)

age 45 and up = 195 employees (29.7% of employees)

Two are between 35 – 45 Two are between 25-35 One is over 45

Location [total employees 657 – 750]

Ottawa = 350

Toronto = 276

Montr é al = 13

Victoria = 12

24 telecommuters

Two of the personas are from Ottawa One is from Toronto One is from Montreal One is a telecommuter

Education

Post graduate & Master = 222 employees (37%)

Undergrad = 207 employees (34%)

Diploma (Technical School) = 161 employees (27%)

HS (High School) = 17 employees (3%)

Two are post grads/Master degrees Two are undergrads One has diploma

Length of Service

2 years - 5 years = 217 (33.0%)

More than 5 years = 179 (27.2%)

6 months - 2 years = 147 (22.4%)

Less than 6 months = 114 (17.4%)

Two have 2-5 years One has more than 5 years One has between 6mths to 2 years One is a new employee <6mths

Computer and Devices

~ 160 person with PDA

~ 300 with laptop

~ 250 with VPN access

100% MSOffice

Two have PDAs All are computer literate One has minimal training (e.g. for intranet)

Bilingual

27.55% are bilingual

Two of the personas are bilingual

Step 3: Develop skeletons

Draft an outline of the personas

Conduct interviews, at least two for each “persona type” to collect more detail and confirm/ remove any assumptions

Female

University Grad

26 years old

Currently working full-time at a bank

Working for less than 1 year

Avg. income 40K

Works in Toronto

She comes to the website for course information

Demographics

Female

Age – 26 years old

Education – University Grad

Location - Works in Toronto

A vg. income 40K

Role – support or management

Lifestyle

Marital status

Hobbies & Interests

Achievement,

Structure,

Collaboration,

Mission

Key Characteristics/ skills

Technical skills

Social skills

Core competencies

Behaviour

How often on computer and on the site?

Travel, mobile or in office?

Personality traits

Website/Intranet Uses:

Frequently used areas

Future Requirements/Goals

Can include personalization and customization

Any collaboration needs

Any tools or software

Demographics

Female

Age – 26 years old

Education – University Grad

Location - Works in Toronto

A vg. income 40K

Role – support or management

Lifestyle

Marital status

Hobbies & Interests

Achievement,

Structure,

Collaboration,

Mission

Key Characteristics/ skills

Technical skills

Social skills

Core competencies

Behaviour

How often on computer and on the site?

Travel, mobile or in office?

Personality traits

Website/Intranet Uses:

Frequently used areas

Future Requirements/Goals

Can include personalization and customization

Any collaboration needs

Any tools or software

Step 5: Choose a Primary Persona

Once you’ve created several personas one should be chosen as “primary”.

The primary persona has right of way, their needs must be met.

Step 6: Promote their use

Promote and communicate the personas and their use

Catchy Names (Rita Researcher)

Posters

Cut-outs

Cards

Include them in your project site

Step 6: Use - Why use Personas

“ The idea isn’t to build something that only one single person will love . Rather, the idea is to build something with one single person in mind . If you use personas as a tool to focus on very specific goals, you’ll focus on a whole class of people – who all share those goals.” – Nielsen Norman Group, Adlin & Pruitt

Problem

Common complaints with respect to usability revolved around the difficulty experienced by users in finding relevant information.

Features of the site most in need of improvement included: search functionality, design (branding), and navigation, with an emphasis on making the site more consumer-focused and intuitive to their user audiences.

Overall goals with respect to usability were to focus on reducing the abandonment rate and providing users with numerous opportunities to find the course or information they are looking for.

Approach

Assessment

Research review, metric analysis & site evaluation – Key Findings and Recommendations report

Planning

Developed personas & logic flows

Developed IA , wireframes & a prototype site

Conducted usability testing & persona validation with 10 participants

Modified IA & wireframes

Created design concepts

(12 week project)

Site re-launched in November 2008

Personas

Three personas were defined:

Persona 1: Looking for a Career in Financial Services

Persona 2: Current CSI Student

Persona 3: Training Manager

Demographics

Female

University Grad

26 years old

Avg. income 40K

Works in Toronto

Wants to take the CSC/IFC to advance her career

Anticipated Behaviour

Debbie will visit the CSI site either by a referral from someone else (incl. HR/Training) which in all likelihood would be to the home page of www.csi.ca or by searching on Google for CSC, IFC or potentially CSI.

Debbie’s first visit to the site will be exploratory; she will want to learn as much as possible about the courses and what her options are. She will be willing to make a long term commitment to learning to get her designations if she feels they will help her career and her earning potential.

Debbie’s next visit to the site will be from a bookmarked page – probably the CSC or IFC main page. She will want to know the cost so she can get approval. She will want to know how long the courses are, what the delivery options are and when the next course is so that she can coordinate her schedule. She will want to know how quickly she can complete her qualifications and if they can be applied to her performance review.

Debbie is willing to take courses in person as she sees it as a networking opportunity but she is also computer literate and comfortable with online courses. She is also very interested in understanding the exam process and seeing examples would ease her mind on what she needs to be prepared for.

“ Debbie”

John is familiar with CSI and will probably have the site bookmarked or the URL memorized and will go there directly.

John’s focus is on the mandatory IIROC (formerly IDA) CE requirements (30 hours professional and 12 hours compliance every 3 years).

He will go to the site looking for continuing education courses that will provide him with the most value.

He works long hours and is starting a family so his time is limited.

He is looking for specific courses that he can take online if possible.

He wants to see a direct benefit for his career in taking the courses.

He needs to take the courses so he can complete them in time to meet the mandatory requirements.

He may be considering expanding his license and therefore would be interested in insurance, options, futures etc. Therefore he would search continuing education, seminars, certification and perhaps designations to understand what his options are and match them to his interests as well as to bank initiatives

Demographics

Male

36 years old

University grad; Fluent in English and French

Working for 5 years; Currently working full-time at Full service brokerage

Works in Montreal

Avg. income $79K

Investment Advisor therefore, he has completed the CSC, CPH and WME;

Looking to complete his Continuing Education requirements (modules/seminars)

Demographics

Slightly more skewed towards females

Proficient with internal bank LMS systems

Works full-time for one of the big banks

38 years old

8-10 years of related banking/training experience

University grad

Familiar with CSI and ICB courses some of our courses i.e. CSC, PFP

Visits www.csi.ca at least once per week

Mary has the homepage of CSI bookmarked as she visits the site often for a variety of reasons. She needs to be able to get a good overview of what courses are offered as well as their cost and schedule.

Mary sees herself as more of a career manager as she provides employees with information and encouragement on developing their career.

For new employees she provides information on introductory programs (CSC, PFPC, IFC, PFP etc.) . She may email the link to the employee ( https://www.csi.ca/student/en_ca/courses/introductory/csc.xhtml )

She spends time with more senior, long-term employees who need to meet mandatory requirements like IIROC's CE 12 hour compliance .

Mary likes to know what is going on within the training environment as well as within the industry – if she sees up to date news she reads it and she subscribes to newsletters that offer training information and advice. Mary likes to be knowledgeable about courses so she can offer in-depth advice.

Mary likes to be able to bookmark various courses and see at a glance the details including pre-requisites, cost and schedule so she can provide the best advice possible to employees.

Mary sends out emails to select employees to prompt them to upgrade their skills or to provide them with training advice.

“ Mary”

Personas work because…

People respond to people , they are easier to remember and reference than a compilation of data.

Personas are generative – people can relate to them, understand them, acknowledge the relationship they would have including experience and acknowledge that they will change overtime.

Personas help a team focus on important aspects of target users – they simplify the reference points.

Female

Late 20’s

High energy, motivated

Analyst, career focused

Expert txt msgr

Outgoing and social

Has made online purchases

Bethany Buyer

Use personas to:

Develop information architecture and wireframes

Develop design concepts

Create functional plans

Create content management plan

Create content

Create communications plan

(intranet: Promotional plan)

(Internet: Marketing/SEO plan to attract personas)

Develop products, applications and tools

Personas are a tool to help you know your users and create better designs and content for those users.

Personas provide user focus © 2009 Prescient Digital Media “ Their greatest value is in providing a shared basis for communication.” – Pruitt & Grudinol, MS http://search.microsoft.com/results.aspx?form=MSHOME&mkt=en-US&setlang=en-US&q=personas

Getting started