This document describes Walmart's process for developing personas to represent their online customers. They analyzed large amounts of customer data from various sources to identify 6 primary personas and 3 secondary personas. They created detailed profiles for each persona that included demographics, goals, attitudes, behaviors, quotes, and visual representations. They obtained buy-in throughout the process from various stakeholders and departments. Finally, they implemented a comprehensive training plan to introduce the personas to employees across the company.

1. Giving Personas a life of their own
Michael Morgan
Senior Manager,
User Experience Research
UXPA2013
@WalmartLabs
Kelly Braun
Senior Director
User Insights & Analytics

2. Our challenge: Understand the Walmart.com customer
● Lots of data on Walmart stores
– 100,000,000 people shop in a Walmart every week
● Fiscal 2013 Walmart had net sales of $446 B
● Fiscal 2014 Walmart.com projected at $9 B
● Most Walmart.com shoppers also shop in Walmart stores
Who is the Walmart.com shopper?
How do we design for her?
2

3. 3

4. History of Walmart.com
4

5. Who is not a typical Walmart.com shopper?
5

6. You are not the customer!
6

7. Image Source: http://www.avsinc.net/imgs/pictures/usgbc-medium-conference-room-large.jpg
Drinks Coffee
Loves Cats
Previous attempts
7

8. Personas
Vendors
Research
Team
UX Design
Team
Executive
Stakeholders
Training Dept
Data
Buy In
Training Materials
8

9. Base Personas on Data
Personas
Research
Team
UX Design
Team
Executive
Stakeholders
Training Dept
Data
Buy In
Training Materials
9

10. Provide a data rich view of online shoppers that
will enable teams to make more
informed decisions about designing for Walmart.com.
1
0

11. Data, data, data
● Mined multiple sources for existing data
– Store customer data from HQ Consumer Insights team.
– Ethnographic research conducted to inform Mobile product
development.
– “Customer Pain Point” data
• Site “health” benchmarking studies
• OpinionLab data
● New research was conducted
– Attitudes and Usage survey
– Customer Interviews (field and remote)
11

12. Attitudes and Usage Survey
● 2229 online shoppers.
● Blind study, data also gathered on various competitors.
● Multivariate, factor analysis.
● Cluster analysis produced 5 segments.
● Data collection and analysis done by:
12

13. Customer Interviews
● 32 customer interviews conducted by BellaVia Research
● Interviews conducted nationwide:
– NY, IL, AZ, OH, TX, NM, WY, UT, LA, GA, NC
● Blind study
● Half before Holiday / half during Holiday
– Including Black Friday and Cyber Monday

14. Persona
Creation
Videos
Cross Tabs
Segmentation
Transcripts
Charts
Melding multiple sources of data into a cohesive story
1
4

15. Organizing the data
1
5

16. 6 Personas
Image Source: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/67801242/segmentation
3 Primary Personas 3 Secondary Personas
1
6

17. Persona Material Creation Process
Personas
Research
Team
UX Design
Team
Executive
Stakeholders
Training Dept
Data
Buy In
Training Materials
1
7

18. Image Source: http://www.21stcentech.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/maslow.jpg
?
Drinks Coffee
Loves Cats
1
8

19. Rough Sketches
1
9

20. Final Visual
Summary
Statement
Demographics
Hierarchy of
Needs
Personal
Quote
Summary of Attitudes and Behaviors
2
0

21. Delights and
Disappointments
Channel and Phase of
Shopping
Use Case
Final Visual
2
1

22. Persona Novellas
2
2

23. Buy In
Personas
Research
Team
UX Design
Team
Executive
Stakeholders
Training Dept
Data
Buy In
Training Materials
2
3

24. Getting buy in along the way
● Within your organization
● External organizations
● Execs
24
Week of: May 14 May 30 June 4 June 11 June 18 June 25
Personas Final Content
Apply visual design
Final Persona Approval
Build in the time as part of your plan!

25. What is important to each stakeholder?
● Within the User Experience organization
– Budget and Researcher time.
– High quality data and rigorous analysis.
– High quality final deliverables.
– Stories: easy to consume knowledge about our customers.
– Reference tool that can be used in all phases of the product
development lifecycle.
25

26. What is important to each stakeholder?
● Within Product Development organization
– How will Personas help us go faster during design and
development?
26

27. What is important to each stakeholder?
● Within Marketing and other Research organizations
– No “turf” wars: Personas are NOT a marketing tool.
– They want their opinions are heard. Chance to give feedback.
– High quality data and rigorous analysis.
– “Feels” right.
2
7

28. What is important to each stakeholder?
● Walmart.com President and Executive Council
– Do these “feel” right?
– Does the data support this?
– Will we make the right decisions?
● Evidence of due diligence
● Support from other Execs
28

29. 4 Steps
Personas
Vendors
Research
Team
UX Design
Team
Executive
Stakeholders
Training Dept
Data
Buy In
Training Materials
2
9

30. Training Phase 1
Image Source: http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2007/05/sharing-ownership-of-ux.php 3
0

31. Training Phase 1
High Level Summary
3
1

32. Training
User Experience and Product Management Training
Tips
• Introduction
• Provide high level overview of main points
• Group exercise
3
2

33. Training Phase 2
Deep dive
Tips
• Figure out your consumers
• Tailor the content to those people
3
3

34. 3
4

35. Image Source: http://www.innovationinpractice.com/innovation_in_practice/2010/05/the-voice-of-serendipity.html 3
5

36. Company-wide Training
Image Source: http://www.bluetunadocs.com/onlineCMS/userfiles/BlueTuna/NewEmployee.jpg
“I happen to like them. Anything to
humanize the blinking lights on our
servers and numbers in our
spreadsheets is good for creative
marketing.” – VP of Marketing
3
6

37. Company-wide Training
Image Source: http://blog.smashfly.com/2012/02/28/switching-recruiting-technologies-3-ways-to-encourage-employee-buy-in/
Image Source: http://content.arma.org/imm/July-August2012/garpseriesgettingbuyin.aspx; http://www.homemasterbuilders.com/images/commitment.jpg
Summary
Statement
Demographic
s
Hierarchy of
Needs
Personal
Quote
Summary of Shopping
Behaviors
3
7

38. Company-wide Training
Delights and
Disappointments
Channel and Phase of
Shopping
Specific Attitudes and
Behaviors
3
8

39. Company-wide Training
3
9

40. Company-wide Training
4
0

41. Company-wide Training
4
1

42. Personas
Vendors
Research
Team
UX Design
Team
Executive
Stakeholders
Training Dept
Data
Buy In
Training Materials
4
2

43. Questions
4
3