What are personas and how are they used? This presentation describes personas and the difference between market segments, and how personas can be used.

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What are personas?
CONTACT
Jenn Coonce
Email: jenncoonce@gmail.com
Phone: 917-859-4921
www.jenncoonce.com

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Personas…

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Tell the stories of the different types of users you need to design for

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Use real-world data gathered from customers to identify characteristics
that pertain to specific site features and functions
• 36 years old, mother of 4
• Part-time therapist
• Lives in Houston, Texas
• Eats out daily for
breakfast and lunch
• Eats Starbucks oatmeal
• Looks up restaurants on
her phone, in her car, and
spends little time looking.
• Special occasions with
her husband
• 28 years old, engaged
• Yoga teacher & therapist
• Lives in Boston, MA
• Eats out a couple of times
during the week and one
weekend night with her
boyfriend or friends
• Often purchases
Groupons for restaurants
• Technology Executive
• Married with kids
• Travels often internationally
• Often organizes networking
dinners in his industry
• Orders takeout often
• First looks to friends for
recommendations
• For a specific restaurant, he
looks up Yelp and other
reviews.
Imagine you’re building a restaurant finder:

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Point to information and features that users will be looking for

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Are not market segments, and focus on behaviors and needs rather than
preferences and trends
52%
96%
84%
89%
% who bought
online
20%
26% 27%
37%
43% 43%
23%
17%
21%
Reluctant
Recognition
Seekers
Efficient
Online
Orderers
Earnest
Romantics
Teleflora
spend
14%
Consumers
9%
Total floral
category spend
Floral
Fanatics
20%
10%
38%
15%
26%
% who bought
from Company X
81%
OVERALL
24%
OVERALL

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Are not real people, “dream users,” ourselves, or characters with
irrelevant biographical data

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Involve the extended working team in the process

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How do we use
personas?

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Benefits of personas

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How to use personas in design
Design to customer goals
Develop the best solution to
meet the needs of the
customers you’re targeting.
Personas
as a part of
process
Find out what customers need
Gather information to find out
how customer needs align to
business goals.
Assess success of
designs
Test designs and concepts
with customers to evaluate
their success
Adjust strategy as
you learn
Continually adjust strategy
and understanding of
personas based on what
you learn over time.

12. JENN COONCE EXPERIENCE DESIGN
How do we create
meaningful
personas?

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Persona Creation
1 Interview participants representing a cross-section customers
•Goals
•Expectations
•Attitudes
•Behaviors

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Persona Creation
2 Compare participants and identify the important ways in which participants differ

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Persona Creation
3 Identify clusters of types of personas

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Persona Creation
4 Elaborate detailed characteristics that are actually useful to a design team

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Persona Creation
4 Identify a task flow for each persona

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Sample Persona

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Sample Persona

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Sample Persona

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Sample Experience Map

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Sample Experience Flow

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Thank you