A presentation from ProductCamp Altanta 5 on Sept 10, 2011 by John Peltier and Kevin O'Malley Updated with additional content in November 2011 for ProductCamp Nashville

1. John Peltier
@johnpeltier
ProductCamp Nashville
November 12, 2011

2. http://geoffreyholsclaw.net/blog/2010/10/12/is-the-un-conference-the-next-big-
conference/

3. Preamble
 About Me:
 Product Manager – The Network, Inc. in Atlanta
 Organizer – ProductCamp Atlanta
 Former Marketing Lead – ProductCamp Austin
 Acknowledgment:
 Some content by Kevin O’Malley, Chief Product Officer at
Preparis, Inc. (@kjomalley)

4. A persona is a Composite.

5. What is a Persona?
 Representation of a composite of an interested party
 May represent the buyer, or the user

6. What is a Persona? (part 2)
 Derived from customer observations and interviews
 Keep going until you find patterns!
 Often presented in narrative form
 Has real-life details including a name and photo
 Includes intangibles like behaviors, motivators

7. What are they useful for?
 Interaction design – Workflows, screen layouts
 Graphic design – Colors, iconography
 Backlog management – Feature prioritization
 Portfolio management – Product evaluation

8. User Personas
 Represent a slice of the user population that has
common characteristics and share common
problems
 != People paying for the product!
 Changes design questions from “Can the user enter
the invoice?” to “Can Bob enter the invoice?”

9. Persona Example (subset)
Betty Mobb | Dental Assistant
Age 32
Betty attends to 25-30 patients per day and
struggles to leave in 8 hours. She works 4
days per week and her husband is
Challenges: employed full time.
 Rapid patient volume
Betty completed her Associate’s Degree
 Maintain sterile environment
and is studying to become a Dental
Hygienist.
Betty is technologically savvy and is
irritated with procedures that take more
steps than necessary.
Image via Army Medicine, Creative Commons License

10. Kodak Acquisition Module

11. Buyer Personas
 Convey buyer goals, beliefs, needs, attitudes of a slice
of the buyer population
 Can be messaged in the same way
 Can’t be made up;
 High value in unexpected motivators
 Example; “I want a personal life” as a root cause.
 Aligning your
messaging, programs, literature, demos/presentations,
and sales efforts

12. Example – “The Recommender”
 Sandra Richards has 20 years of experience as a human resources
executive with a distinguished track record. A consummate
multi-tasker, she was assigned to spearhead her company’s
project in addition to her regular human resources
responsibilities.
 Sandra is responsible for ensuring the successful implementation
of the program across the offices in her company’s network. She
has had no previous experience in this area prior to her
appointment and has educated herself by networking with her
peers, attending industry events and through content published
by vendors.
 Sandra is not especially active on social media or the Internet.
She watches the local television newscast and subscribes to email
alerts from regulatory bodies that are relevant to her industry.
Sandra has a Linkedin profile and is a member of several human
resources groups.

13. How to Create Personas
 Data
 Demographic studies
 Win/loss
 Direct research
 SME input
 What do your users/buyers read? Attend?
 Contextual Observation

Bring camera, notebook, audio recorder!
 Interviews

14. Example Tool: UsersBox

15. Lifespan
 Bring them to life?
 Posters on the wall
 Have them email your team
 Videos
 When do you need to update?
 When something changes in that target market.

16. User Insight Video

17. Discussion
 Thoughts?
 Experiences?
 Skepticism?