Demographics and Personas

Lisa Gualtieri, PhD, ScM, Course DirectorTufts University School of Medicine

July 18-23, 2010

An effective strategy requires…

• Who is currently and who do you want to be using it?

• What is your competition doing that you can– Learn from– Do better– Do differently

Competitive analysis

Personas

SWOT

Goals

Technology

Content

Design

Evaluation

New web strategy

Existing web strategy

Who are HCCs and what doyou need to know about them

• Demographics of internet use• Use of the internet for health• Defining your target user population through

personas

Global internet use as of 12/09

Demographics of US Internet

Users

65+

• Internet use by 65+ tends to be shallow: email, search

Demographics of US Wireless (Laptop or

Handheld Device) Internet Users

• As of May 2010, 59% of American adults are wireless internet users

Mobile Devices

• 2.7 billion cell phone subscriptions in the world– 3 times more than all PCs,

laptops, and servers

What do mobile subscribers do

• 65.2% of U.S. mobile subscribers used text messaging on their mobile device in May, 2010

• 31.9% of U.S. mobile used browsers• 20.8% accessed social networking sites or blogs• Other activities using downloaded apps (30%),

playing games (22.5%), and listening to music (14.3%)

Mobile Technographics: Understanding The Connected

Consumer

What are people doing

online?

Searching is one of the most common activities

• 46% more online searches were made worldwide in December 2009 than in December 2008

• 15+ conducted 131 billion searches just in December, or an average of 4 billion searches a day, 175 million per hour, and 29 million per minute

• Americans: 22.7 billion searches - 17% of all worldwide searches

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9148498/Search_engine_use_explodes_in_December

What are the implications for HCCs?

• Digital divide: not everyone is online• Not all people who are online use the internet

for health

Janice Adams: “I asked our doctor if I should look something up on the Internet and he said, ‘No. Come and ask me; it’s too frightening if you read the wrong things.’ And we do.”

Volker Wulf: “My sister is a doctor.”

Christos Kitsos: In Greece we go to the doctor, maybe 2 or 3 doctors.

Anja Habas-Korbar: “It was easier to get information from the Internet than from doctors… being in pain is motivating.”

Scott Bateman and Adrian Reetz, University of Saskatchewan

Scott’s feet

Changes From 2000-2009: Internet Access and Health Seeking

2000• 46% of American adults

had access to the Internet

• 25% of American adults looked online for health information

2009• 74% of American adults

have access to the Internet

• 61% of American adults look online for health information

The Social Life of Health Information, June 2009, http://pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2009/PIP_Health_2009.pdf

Harris Poll: 84% of all US online adults

http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=792

The internet is not the primary source for health issues

• When asked, "Now thinking about all the sources you turn to when you need information or assistance in dealing with health or medical issues..."– 86% of all adults ask a health professional such as a

doctor– 68% of all adults ask a friend or family member– 57% of all adults use the internet– 54% use books or other printed reference material– 33% contact their insurance provider

The Social Life of Health Information, June 2009, http://pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2009/PIP_Health_2009.pdf

Which resources have you used to obtain information on a health-related question?

Gregory House, MD may not recommend websites to his patients

How did you learn about websites?

Demographics of internet users

Who are people looking for information for?

• 52% of all online health inquiries are on behalf of someone else

• 2/3 of e-patients talk with someone else about what they find online, most often a friend or spouse

• “the pursuit of health information does not happen in a social vacuum”

• http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2009/8-The-Social-Life-of-Health-Information/01-Summary-of-Findings.aspx?r=1

Individuals, not just numbers

• With varying levels of– Prior knowledge and experience– Skills and disabilities– Health literacy– Medical knowledge– Needs – Economic situations

• Cultural and language differences

What are the advantages and disadvantages of these ways

to learn about your users?

• Surveys: your own, Pew, or others• Focus groups• Individual interviews• Observation • Social media• User feedback: email or feedback forms• Personas

Does consumer research always work? “New Coke”

• The fabled secret formula for Coca-Cola was changed, adopting a formula preferred in taste tests of nearly 200,000 consumers. What these tests didn't show, of course, was the bond consumers felt with their Coca-Cola -- something they didn't want anyone, including The Coca-Cola Company, tampering with.

• Stories at http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/heritage/pdf/stories/Heritage_CokeStories_newcokestories.pdf

• http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/heritage/cokelore_newcoke.html

Ways to learn about users Advantages Disadvantages

Your survey

Using surveys

Focus groups

Interviews

Observation

Social media

User feedback

Personas

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Personas• Prototypical users who can be referred to during all

design/development stages• Benefits (Cooper, 1999):– Help team members share a specific, consistent

understanding of various audience groups. Data about the groups can be put in a proper context and can be understood and remembered in coherent stories.

– Proposed solutions can be guided by how well they meet the needs of individual user personas. Features can be prioritized based on how well they address the needs of one or more personas.

– Provide a human "face" so as to focus empathy on the persons represented by the demographics.

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Persona Development 1) Segmentation2) Characteristics 3) Creation4) Use in scenarios5) Refinement, validation, and documentation of

questions6) What have you learned?

Handout in binders

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(1) Segmentation 1) List your target user populations

a) Refine if subgroups have specific needs or characteristics

b) Prioritize based on potential impactc) Select the 3-4 most important ones

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(2) Define characteristics1) List the relevant demographics– Age, gender, education, ethnicity, or family status– Consider others that may be relevant like religion

2) List their relevant environment– I.e., physical, social, and technological

3) Think about health status and information-seeking behavior– What is the impact of the disease?

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(3) Create 3-4 personas1) Select a segmentation of your user population2) Develop a set of characteristics3) Select characteristics to make the persona

seem real, such a name and a picture4) Optional: create a quote5) Check that characteristics are distributed

reasonably

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(4) Create scenarios1) Walk through a day in your persona’s life

focusing on his or her health needs– What is the persona’s need for the site?– What is the persona’s context for coming to the

site?– What are the persona’s expectations?– Initial use: what was the trigger and how was it

found and used?– Repeat use: why return?– Passive, participatory, or viral use?

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(5) Refinement, validation, and documentation of questions

1) Do these seem accurate?2) Do these seem realistic?3) Do these seem comprehensive?4) What else do you need to know?

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(6) What have you learned?

Sample persona for “Own Your Health”

• Christina is 17 years old. She is a senior in High School. She has one older brother and two younger sisters. Christina lives at home and helps her single mother run the house and manage her younger siblings. Her mom has been sick for a long time and was recently diagnosed with type II diabetes. The family has had to make a lot of changes to their diet to help the mother stay healthy. Christina is very busy managing everything with her life and feels a lot of stress and worry about ending up like her mom. Christina is literate and knows how to use the Internet. Christina’s mom is overwhelmed with her recent diagnoses and does little to guide Christina towards a healthy lifestyle. Though Christina is thin, she know that the family’s lifestyle of eating fast food often could not have been doing good things to the inside of her body. She looks a lot like her mom did when she was younger, beautiful and thin. She is embarrassed to talk to her friends about her mom’s health problems and she feels she cannot further burden her mother with her personal worries. She would like to learn how a doctor could be mentor and guidance in living a healthier life.

Sample persona from http://www.eachotherskeeper.org• Sylvia Sarda is a 29 year old Afro-Latina (Puerto-Rican) single mother of a 14

month old. Part-time employee, unstable income, living in an urban environment. Has a college degree and some experience with health literacy (previous employee of municipal health department). Sylvia has dial-up web access from home and is on Linked-In, Facebook, and Twitter. Is the maternal daughter of a patient and seeking support and knowledge on caring for a Schizophrenic parent as well as costs and alternatives to in-home care of her adult parent. Her family does augment traditional medicine with that of faith-based healers or “botanicas” as a tie to their own belief system and culture. This includes use of healing teas, baths, candle/prayer vigils and fasting from meals during recognized periods and informally as a cleansing process.

• On a typical Day, Sylvia takes care of her infant daughter, makes meals for her mother, volunteers at her local church, and looks for full-time employment. She has no vehicle and worries about her mother’s next overwhelming episode and what will happen if she cannot support it in its entirety. Too, she is not knowledgeable on how to obtain additional support to take care of her mother and daughter when she eventually goes back to work from an extended FMLA.

• Triggers: Sylvia is most likely to access information online regarding her mother’s condition in the evening when her baby is in bed, after she has wrapped up her responsibilities for the day, as well as after her mother has had a schizophrenic episode. Therefore any content she reads will need to be easily accessible, have user generated content areas where she can read content from her peers specifically regarding coping strategies, as well as expert data areas where she can ask specific questions and receive responses, or easily search for answers. Sylvia’s biggest hope out of a site like this is reminding herself she is not alone.

Persona development for HHP in teams

Teams1. Alicia, Kate, Stephanie-Jo, Zeev2. Chris, Jessica, Lindsay3. Diane, Katelyn, Lori, Yoan 4. Divya, Kathleen, Sean, Yelena