Personas are fictitious users of a web site who are representative of a segment of real users. Presumably, personas are created from customer or market data, thus enabling designers to consider the needs of their most frequent and/or most important customers during the concept and design phase of large, costly projects.
Below is an example persona that was created to represent a segment of mobile phone customers. (FYI: This persona is partially based on Gizmodo’s iPhone demographics article, and was uploaded to the ixda discussion group in answer to a post).
Name: Christine Martinez
Age: 31
HHI: $82,000
Location: NYC
Education: Bachelor’s degree, Communications
Job title: Human resources generalist
Marital status: Single, involved in medium term relationship
Internet IQ: High
Shopping IQ: High
Adoption segment: early majority, fashion forward
Primary goals related to cellphone purchase: Email access, web browsing, car safety
Most relevant features: Touchscreen, Pandora access, voice activated dialing, social media app integration
Drivers: Convenience, customer service, cost of phone+data plans, in-sync with trends
Loyalty: High, despite frustration, does not want hassle to switch.
Favorite web sites: Zappo’s, Amazon.com, Hotels.com, woot.com
Internet profile: 2 hours per day, non-email internet usage
Technology profile: Dell laptop (provided by job); iMac at home; iPod touch; iPhone 3G
Social media profile: Averages 45 minutes per day on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, delicious
Favorite TV shows: Dancing with the Stars; Grey’s Anatomy; Men in Trees
Reading now: Ad Age, Ad Week, BrandWeek, Outliers, The Time Traveler’s Wife
Characteristics that impact purchases: Tracks deal web sites like woot.com and , always searches for coupons, willing to spend to not appear out of touch, does not monitor bills
Business value: Periodic high impulse spend despite cautious purchase patterns; refreshes technology every 2 years; open to fashion add-ons
Purchase barriers: What she reads has a big impact on purchase decisions. Negative remarks in Twitter or other social media interpreted as fact. Depends heavily on smart search feature to find products. Wants to see how she or home will look with product, so she often won’t buy until her friends have it.
Purchase Tunnel Dropoff: Difficulty viewing total price before purchase, lack of clear arrival date, lack of clear return policy, better deal on similar item that has same appearance value
Requested content/features: High-level comparison that includes discounts, feature demos, toll-free customer service that is in USA with phone number on web site home page
Switch behavior: Low-switch behavior. Unlikely to switch complex services unless she feels customer service has cheated her. For non-complex switch situations, e.g. cable TV, will switch when she sees an ad with clearly superior pricing and equivalent feature set. Unlikely to switch for features.
Quotes:
- I am on a mission. I go to the Internet with a specific purpose in mind. I don’t browse around for no practical purpose (except Zimbio and YouTube)
- I want to see what other people say about it before I make a decision. If a product is good, it will be popular.
- I don’t trust those companies you never heard of before.
- I don’t want to start from scratch every time I go back to a web site. I like stores and web sites to remember me, the ones I trust, that is.
- I bought it at Best Buy because I had a 10% off coupon
- I don’t like a lot of marketing noise. I don’t trust it and when I see a lot of mixed marketing messages it makes me think that they are desperate and confused about what they are selling.
Method for tracking this customer type with web analytics:
- Entry through marketing campaign on affiliate site that has content targeted to 30 yr. old single female
- Purchases fashion accessory that has higher than average price
- Views many photo pages, does not view many detailed specs pages
- Responds to clickthrough articles and ads with fashion and appearance as main topics
- Search terms: most popular, best deal
Typical purchase scenario:
- Sees ads on TV and billboards
- Sees friend with product
- Google search
- CNET review
- Discussion forums (professional, technical)
- View in store
- View cost breakdown
- Search for coupons, deals
- With a discount, on occasion when she feels prosperous, takes the plunge, buys 2 or 3 accessories to make product look better
Experience gaps:
- Product links from Facebook pages of friends to catalog
- Realistic visual cost meter on services
- Customer service guarantees
- In-store video product details mixed with humor, popularity, and deals; accessible on web site for replay
Copyright 2009, Paul Bryan, Usography Corporation (www.usography.com)
Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/in/uxexperts
