User Persona Research to Discover Website Needs

PERSONA RESEARCH TO D I S C OV E R WEBSITE NEEDS

Persona research is about defining the personality and needs of your users. It is then interpreted by Information Architects.

Information Architecture: The Socialist Party for the Web

What the Hell is Information Architecture? Information Architects deﬁne the User Experience. • Building a complete system • Understanding the big picture • Developing an engaging system • Fluid and elegant to use • Focused on the needs of its intended audience

The Information Architecture Process Deﬁning the user experience: • Develop a persona to best understand the audience • Match audience goals with service offering, features and functionality • Map structure of content to follow the user’s needs • Develop Interface to support audience goals

Data Pattern Mapping IA organizes the patterns of data by six types: • alphabetical • chronological • geographical • task oriented • audience speciﬁc • metaphor

Persona Research for Task Flow

Assignment: Create an online experience for the process of acquiring digital rights to music for commercial use.

The Seeker Age: 36 Education: Bachelors in Liberal Arts Occupation: Editorial Director Employer: American Greetings Location: Cleveland Motivation: Thoroughness Product Use: Signing Greeting Cards Sites Used: iTunes, Google, Amazon Price Conscious Rights Knowledge GreenLight Usage Savviness Expediency “If I can only get this Use Cases: •Price a song that was selected by the Art Department to be used in an audio-greeting process down to just one card. •Have a backup song selected in case the rights click rather than jumping for the ﬁrst choice fall through. through fifty hoops.”

The Drifter Age: 24 Education: in College Occupation: Assistant Employer: Chase Manhattan Location: New York Motivation: Please the Boss Product Use: Presentation Soundtrack Sites Used: Blogs, iTunes, Amazon.com, Pandora Price Conscious Rights Knowledge GreenLight Usage Savviness Expediency Use Cases: •Need suggestions for an intro and outro track to use for a company presentation that will be “This better not make any posted on YouTube. •Larah needs to understand the process and headaches for me trying to go costs for clearing the rights, and then run it by her boss. the legit route.”

Answer: Make it Quick. The steps required needed to be minimized as much as possible, even over additional functionality that does not map with expediency in the ﬂow.

Persona Research for Social Psychology

Assignment: Introduce a Spanish brand’s low-cost online bank into the German market.

“Money is a creature of the law. A theory of money must therefore deal with legal history.” - George Knapp German Economist

Germans have been negatively inﬂuenced by their history of autocratic rule and hyperinﬂation. The result in banking has been large, institutional corporate banks and credit union retail banks.

Imagery used on German banks reﬂect this by over-emphasizing themselves as established.

Answer: Don’t look like a bank. Success will rely on attracting a different audience, born after 1985, without the stigmas and can relate to an online look instead.

Persona Research for User Needs

Persona Research for User Needs Assignment: Create an online reference tool for employees to learn strategies for investing in their 401k accounts.

Finding Patterns in Data Non-Investor Investor “I want my money now” “I want to retire comfortably” “I won’t have enough for now” “I won’t have enough for the future” “What are the beneﬁts “Have I covered all of my bases?” and drawbacks?” “Why should I trust “Will you meet my needs?” you with my money?” “I can take care of myself ” “I want to be well taken care of ”

Finding Patterns in Data Non-Investor Investor “I want my money now” Ambitious “I want to retire comfortably” “I won’t have enough for now” Fearful “I won’t have enough for the future” “What are the beneﬁts and drawbacks?” Uninformed “Have I covered all of my bases?” “Why should I trust you with my money?” Skeptical “Will you meet my needs?” “I can take care of myself ” Optimistic “I want to be well taken care of ”

Answer: Organize data in a way they can relate to it. The profiles selected from the top reflect one of the five common personality types of skeptical, optimistic, ambitious, etc.

Persona Research to Deﬁne Motivation

Assignment: Increase usage for a user-to-user betting website.

Old Target Audience: The Lad • Looking for a little extra cash • Will only bet if they are feel they know the outcome • Will only bet on occasion • Prefer to bet with friends

New Target Audience: The Professional • Make a majority of their living from betting • Think they can control the future by what they bet on • Make several bets a day • Prefers to bet with strangers

Answer: Give them control. An interface that feeds to the Professional’s desire to “control their future” by providing controls of statistical analysis.

Persona Research to Deﬁne Audiences

Assignment: Update a leading healthcare site to be easier to use and branded in a way to be fresher and uplifting.

By surveys and focus groups, we were able to ascertain the main motivations, needs and methods the various audiences use the website. Which of the following features would you be likely to Information about health news Information about my beneﬁts/health plan Information about which drugs are covered by CareOregon Ability to submit forms online Blogs on health and healthy industry topics Live chat/instant messaging with CareOregon staff Feature stories about CareOregon members Information about community events and programs Stories about CareOregon providers Access to support networks for chronic conditions Ability to exchange information with other site visitors Information about CareOregon health plans Tips on staying healthy Educational videos and presentations Discussion boards Other 0 14 28 42 56 70

MEMBERS In the last 30 days, how often did you access the Internet? How often do you use the internet to ﬁnd health-related information?

Being a Medicaid and Medicare provider, most members for example, do not have jobs and are accessing the internet from home or only on occasion from alternative sources. MEMBERS library home cell phone no access other work

A rich diversity of users was discovered with distinct audience needs.

Answer: Reﬂect the audience. CAREOREGON For For Our Health & Transforming About Contact Members Providers Health Plans Wellness Healthcare Us Us The navigation and design was made to represent each user type for them to easily identify with the CareOregon and their needs.

Answer: Reﬂect the audience. The navigation and design was made to represent each user type for them to easily identify with the CareOregon and their needs.

About Perfect Pixels Our background has provided us a unique perspective on meeting brand with user experience, from startups to Fortune 500 companies.

Services Our capabilities include top-to-bottom support for our clients - from brand strategy and design to enterprise web development. Brand Strategy Identity Design Usability Testing Online Marketing Video Post Production Information Architecture HTML & Flash Production Web Design Web Development Content Development

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User Persona Research to Discover Website Needs

by Jason Levine on Aug 12, 2010

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User Persona Research to Discover Website Needs — Presentation Transcript