The document provides information about customer personas and user-centered design. It discusses the importance of understanding users, identifies key characteristics of an ideal customer segment, and provides tips for talking to and learning from customers. Examples of persona profiles are shown, with each persona capturing demographic information, goals, pain points, and motivations. The document advocates developing 2-4 personas based on customer research in order to design products that meet user needs.

1. Andrew Hoag // @ajhoag // www.hoag.co
Customer Personas
European Innovation Academy 2015
07.07.2015

2. Andrew Hoag // @ajhoag // www.hoag.co
• Programming since age of 6; Silicon Valley 16 years
• Networked supercomputers for NASA,
secured banks & governments for VeriSign
• Worked with Alan Cooper and Stanford
d.school (Hasso Plattner Institute)
• Mobile, social, enterprise & consumer apps
• Built & shipped over 100 software products
• Won award from Facebook fbFund
for innovative product (2008)
• Founded & sold a mobile app
company Urbantag (2012)
Andrew Hoag // @ajhoag // www.hoag.co

3. Andrew Hoag // @ajhoag // www.hoag.co
Why is user-centered design important?
• All interfaces are social in nature.
• Understand the difference between intended and
actual use.
• Product-Market fit!

4. Andrew Hoag // @ajhoag // www.hoag.co
Who is our ideal customer segment?
1.Ready
‣ They have a problem, know they have a problem, and it’s acute
2.Willing
‣ They are ready to take action, and could already be exploring
options
3.Able
‣ They have the authority + means to solve the problem (money,
people, commitment), and want to buy the way you sell
Lincoln Murphy, http://sixteenventures.com/ideal-customer-profile

5. Andrew Hoag // @ajhoag // www.hoag.co
Start talking to customers
• Be curious about how they do things today
• Observe (photograph!) their environment
including desktop, home screen, office
environment, etc.
• Talk less, listen more, and ask lots of open-
ended questions
• Gather facts instead of opinions.
“Get outside the building...”

6. Andrew Hoag // @ajhoag // www.hoag.co
What are personas?
• Represent the needs of many
• Know who we are building for:
archetypical users
• What are users trying to accomplish:
based on observed behavior patterns
• Understand a user’s motivations:
match user’s goals and unmet needs
➡ Evaluate & market our product against a specific user
Market
Segment
Persona

7. Andrew Hoag // @ajhoag // www.hoag.co
Some example personas

8. Andrew Hoag // @ajhoag // www.hoag.co
A good persona includes:
• The demographic profile (age, education,
personality type) and ethnographic
(environmental) factors
• The role that this persona fits (customer segment
or sub-segment)
• The routine and context of this user
• How they are solving the problem today
• Their motivation (ego, money, altruism)

9. Andrew Hoag // @ajhoag // www.hoag.co
John
Senior Controller
34, London, UK
Customer Segment
& Role
Accounting teams that want to reduce
reliance on paper to save money.
Efficiency Junkie
Demographic
& Ethnographic
John has been working as a Controller since graduating from a public University
in rural England. He always feels as if he is at the bottom of the pile, and has
trouble getting anything pushed through that will help make his department more
efficient. His desk is neat, organized, and clean.
Daily routine and
usage context
John’s day is very structured -- every morning he spends one hour reviewing
incoming requests for disbursements, and at the end of every day he reviews all
of his department’s entries to ensure everything ended up in the correct accounts.
Problem and goals
John spends a lot of his time unstapling receipts from expense reports, and is
looking for a faster (and more accurate) way to allocate the growing company’s
expenses to the correct ledger accounts.
How they solve the
problem today
Today John has his team process all incoming receipts and expenses, and try to
sort them by department code. Often times this requires discussion about what
expenses go where, and they even end up with paper cuts from moving all the
documents around.
Why do they care?
John wants his team to be more efficient, because though the company has grown
his team has not. He hates all the errors and constant corrections required of the
current process, in addition to the piles of paper that must be moved and stores.
And ultimately he just wants a “win” to feel important.

10. Andrew Hoag // @ajhoag // www.hoag.co
3 steps to identifying your users
1.Identify your customer segment(s) in 1 sentence:
Example: ____ that want ____ in order to ____.
2.Interview potential customers in that segment
Preference: In person, video, phone, survey
3.Develop your personas (2-4 is typical)

11. Andrew Hoag @ajhoag
Thank you!