the user is always right personas
DESCRIPTION
How do we ensure that our Web sites actually give users what they need and deliver results? Personas bring user research to life and make it actionable, ensuring we're making the right decisions based on the right information. Discover the latest techniques for creating personas, including advice on conducting user interviews, new methods for applying quantitative research such as surveys and log file analysis, approaches for generating persona segmentation, and fun ideas for making your personas real. It's time to take personas to the next level. Presentation by Steve Mulder.TRANSCRIPT
Copyright © 2007 Molecular, Inc. | www.molecular.com | Linked by Isobar 1
Steve Mulder
Making Personas Work for Your Site
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…and so that’s the plan for redesigning the web site. We believe this strategy will increase revenue
enough to pay for itself within six months. Any questions?
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What happened to feature x?
In our experience, feature x isn’t worth the investment. our customers don’t want it.
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Hmm. That’s not what we discussed in the kick-off
meeting.
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Our contextual analysis revealed that even in critical use cases, feature x was not part of the typical customer’s mental
model. The presence of feature x even produced cognitive dissonance among our most loyal customers base, where the
opportunity score was below 0.7. the roi simply isn’t there.
I still think customers would use feature x. I’d
use it.
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Yes, but are all of our customers just like you?
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No, but I know what my customers want, and this is
important.
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But our users don’t need it. that’s what the analysis shows.
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forget everything you know about users. we need to be innovative!
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But innovation begins with first understanding what our customers really
need.
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are you saying I don’t understand
my customers?!
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No, but our analysis…
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Feature x stays in scope. Okay, are we
done?
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Business results depend on satisfying users
You are not your user
Learning about users requires direct contact
Knowledge about users must be actionable
Decisions should be based on users
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Personas bring focus
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Personas build
empathy
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Personas encourage consensus
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Personas create efficiency
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Personas lead to better decisions
Personas for DesignInformation architecture, interaction design, visual design, content development, user testing
Personas for MarketingFramework for marketing campaigns, branding, messaging, market research
Personas for StrategyFramework for business decisions,offerings, channel usage, features
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Creating Personas
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The Landscape of User Research and Testing
User Interviews
QUALITATIVE (INSIGHTS)
GOALS & ATTITUDES
(ASPIRATIONAL)
BEHAVIORS
(ACTUAL)
User Surveys
Usability Testing
Site Traffic/Log File Analysis
Eye Tracking
Field Studies (Contextual Inquiry)
Shadow Shopping (Shop-Along)
Intercepts
Customer Support Data
Card Sorting
Focus Groups
Diary/Journal Studies
Participatory Design
User Advisory Panel
Automated Usability Testing
User Reports
Collages
QUANTITATIVE (VALIDATION)A/B Testing
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Qualitative Personas
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User Interviews
• Cross-section of online customers, offline customers, non-customers, other audiences
• 15 interviews is a good starting point• Informal, loosely structured conversations
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User Interviews: Topics
• History with the company• Intro to company, usage/purchase history, early impressions
• Domain experience and knowledge• Domain expertise, competitors, share of wallet
• Goals and behaviors• Needs/triggers for usage, typical process, channel usage,
feature and content usage, gaps, wish list
• Attitudes and motivators• Description of experience, likes/dislikes, influencers,
psychological drivers
• Opportunities• Reaction to new ideas, features, content, improvements
• Observation of actual behavior (field studies, usability tests)
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Segmentation
Goals
Behaviors
Attitudes
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Personas
Understand how people will actually use the site
Segmentation: Marketing vs. Personas
Marketing
Sell to people
Age
IncomeGender
Otherdemographics
Goals
Behaviors
Attitudes
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Segmentation by Goals
What are different people trying to do on the site?
Hierarchy of Goals
Other goals:• Buy commercial property• Find an apartment• Sell a house
Be happy
Be independent
Buy a house
Understand process
Learn about points
Motivator
Motivator
Goal
Need
Task
• Get a mortgage loan• Get insurance• Find a moving company
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Segmentation by Behaviors and Attitudes
How do users differ based on what they do or how they think?
Behaviors:• Frequency of real
estate activity• Frequency of visits to
the site• Channel usage for
various needs• Use of competitors
Attitudes:• Knowledge about
real estate• Motivators affecting
users’ likelihood to buy or sell
• Perception of the company/brand
• Etc.
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Segmentation by Behaviors and Attitudes
Explore different combinationsF
requ
enc
y o
f rea
l est
ate
act
ivity
Knowledge about real estate
The risk-taker who thinks he knows more than he actually does
The novice who needs a lot of guidance
The pro who wants to use site tools and doesn’t need help
The smart one who wants validation of what she already knows
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Segmentation by Behaviors and Attitudes
FedEx segmentationL
eve
l of p
repa
ratio
n
Desired level of personal interaction
Me
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Segmentation: The Tests
Your segments should…• Explain key differences you’ve
observed among users• Be different enough from
each other• Feel like real people• Be described quickly• Cover all users• Clearly affect decision making
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Qualitative Personas with Quantitative Validation
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Surveys
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Surveys: Who
• Cross-section of users• Goal: 100+ completions per segment
• 17,000 emails @ 3% completion rate = 500 completions
• Incentives and reminders can boost completion rate
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Surveys: What
• Questions to gather data on segmentation attributes (dependent variables)• Goal for visiting site (buy home, find apartment, etc.)
• Frequency of site visits for each possible user goal• Importance of each possible goal to the user
• Knowledge of real estate• Previous real estate experiences• User’s self-perception of real estate expertise
• Questions to test the segmentation against (independent variables)• Other behaviors (site/channel usage, feature usage, etc.)• Other attitudes (toward company, about self, etc.)• New features and content to test
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Surveys: What
Recommended order of questions:• Current goals, usage, and behavior, including channel
usage• History with the site and company• User of or importance of existing features and content• Satisfaction with existing features and content• Importance of new features and content• Psychographic questions• Demographic questions
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Site Traffic Analysis
• Entry pages• Referrers• Exit pages• Common paths• Feature usage• Search terms• Conversion rate• Duration• Frequency
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CRM Data
• Annual spending• Frequency of purchase• Products or services purchased• Channel usage• Customer support usage• Length of time as a customer
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Quantitative Nirvana: Complete User Portrait
• Survey data
What the user does
• Site traffic analysis• CRM data• Self-reported survey data
What the user says
What the user is worth
• CRM data• Self-reported
survey data
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Testing the Segmentation
Cross-tabs (pivot tables) in Excel
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Quantitative Personas
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Quantitative Segmentation
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Quantitative Segmentation
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Quantitative Segmentation
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Making Personas Real
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Key Differentiators
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Name
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Photo
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Photo
www.sxc.hu www.morguefile.com www.istockphoto.com
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Personal Information
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Domain-Specific Information
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Computer and Internet Usage
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Profile
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Quote
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Business Objectives
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Prioritization
• Primary• Secondary• Unimportant• Excluded
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Scenarios
Francis and Michael have agreed that she’ll take charge of learning more about the home-buying process. She goes online, does a Google search for “Atlanta real estate,” and follows a link to the site’s home page. She sees that she can search for houses from the home page, so just for fun, she does a quick Atlanta search to see what kinds of houses show up. There are lots of houses in many different neighborhoods, and she easily narrows her results down to the area where she and Michael live, using a map. There are still many results, and she’s not quite sure which search options to use to narrow the search further. Then she notices a link for first-time home buyers and follows, it hoping for basic how-to information.
The link takes Francis to a step-by-step tutorial that explains the whole process, and she immediately feels like she’s found the right site from which to begin her house search. She carefully reads some articles for first-time home buyers, taking notes as she reads. She bookmarks other articles she wants to go back and read later. She also comes across the site’s calculator and starts trying different combinations of numbers to find out what she and Michael can afford. She particularly likes the glossary of terms so that she can finally figure out what “points” are and learn more about different types of mortgages. After an hour and a half of reading, her brain is full, and she shuts her computer down for the day, feeling like she got an excellent start.
The next day, she comes back to the site to look up information specific to Atlanta neighborhoods and finds lots of information on each. She’s able to focus on five neighborhoods that look particularly good. The fun begins that night, when she takes Michael through all that she has learned, and they set up a regular schedule for looking at online house listings.
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Using Personas
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Persona Document
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Persona Cards
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Lifesize Cutouts
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Persona Cubicle
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Other Ideas for Keeping Personas Alive
• Posters• Tchotchkes• Day-in-the-life photos, audio diaries, etc.• Role-playing• Quizzes• Staple to documents• Email addresses
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Business Strategy
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Features and Functionality
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Features and Functionality: Brainstorming
Francis’ Goals
Learn about the home-buying process
Find out what she can afford
Discover what areas of Atlanta are desirable
Find a house that matches her criteria
Business Objectives
Visit the site often
Register for email alerts and newsletters
Subscribe to premium services
Recommend the site to others
Possible Features and Content
Introductory how-to articles
Glossary of jargon
Videos and podcasts
Success stories
Q&A with experts
Message board
Blogs
Rent vs. own calculator
Local experts to call/meet
Checklists to print
Interactive quizzes
Common mistakes
Animated cartoons
Book recommendations
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Features and Functionality: Prioritizing
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Structure
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Structure: Task Analysis
1. Search for houses from home page
a. Enter location by city and state, or zip code
b. Enter price range
c. Enter number of bedrooms and/or bathrooms
d. Submit search
2. View and narrow results
1. Browse first page of results: photo, price, address, basic stats, and description
2. Click to show results on map
3. Click map to narrow results to one neighborhood
4. Browse new results
3. Read tutorial
1. Click link for first-time home buyers
2. Read landing page for learning area
3. Click teaser for step-by-step tutorial
And so on…
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Structure: Use Cases
Search for Houses
Level: User goal
Primary actor: Francis the First-Time Home Buyer
Preconditions: • Francis arrives at home page or House Search landing page
Main success scenario:
1. Francis enters city and state or zip code.
2. System uses auto-completion to show options below search field as Francis types. System shows up to 10 matching city names in order of number of homes for sale in each city. Francis can click a city name to select that city.
3. Francis selects minimum and maximum price values from drop-down menus.
4. System validates selected values.
5. Francis selects number of bedrooms and bathrooms from drop-down menus.
6. Francis submits search.
7. System validates required fields before submitting query.
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Structure: Information Architecture
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Structure: Information Architecture
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Structure: Navigation
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Structure: Site Search
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Content
• Articles or product descriptions• Instructional text• Documentation and help• Error messages• Imagery• Sound• Video
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Content: Word Cloud
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Design
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Design: Mood Board
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Design: Appealing to All Personas
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Testing and Measuring Success
• QA process• Usability testing• Log files• Survey• Predictive modeling
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Steve [email protected]
www.molecular.com/webdesignworld-chicago
PracticalPersonas.com
Thanks!