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Personas

When is this method appropriate?

The better the users’ requirements, needs and wishes are known the less is the risk not to be conform to users’ expectations. Personas are archetypical users who represent the target-group of your website. Personas help us to get detailed information about the users. The insights of your users are necessary for an efficient development and for a successful website.

Possible questions:

Who are the typical users on my website?
How can I visualise my typical users?
What intentions do the users have on my website?
How do these users use your website and what are their targets?
What contents, functions and services do your users want?
How can I achieve that my development team design the planned website user-centrally?

And many more…

In what project phase applicable?

Analysis
At the beginning of the project it is important to have a concrete conception referring to the users. Personas should be created on the base of quantitative or qualitative data within a requirement analysis. So it is possible to recognise and describe potential target-groups more precisely.
Live Activity/Usage
If the website is online, personas are appropriate for a target-performance-analysis. So you can see whether your expectations or hypotheses are correct concerning the users. On the base of created personas you can (a) optimise the website for your actual users or (b) you can prosecute a reorientation to contact user-groups more aimed.

Wie läuft diese Methode ab?

How does one develop personas?

The first step to create personas is to implement a method for data ascertainment because personas are based on user data. For the ascertainment there is a variety of appropriate procedures and techniques possible. The following list provides an exemplary impression:

Even already closed studies that are not aimed-at the development of personas can be helpful when they provide user-referred information.

How are personas created? (With the example of an onsite survey)

Data ascertainment
With help of an onsite survey user-referred data can be directly ascertained on your website. This survey provides users’ information about personal features, requirements and expectations. This procedure works well to get to know the users of your already existing website.
Data segmentation
If data present the users, the segmentation process takes place. The data of the different, heterogeneous users have to be divided into homogeneous user-groups.
To identify these user-groups active variables have to be determined. These variables show the differences between user-groups in a very good way. So they contribute to differentiate the heterogeneous users and are the base for statistic countings. In the next step core and marginal personas, which represent main-user-groups and their sub-groups, are identified by cluster-analysis-procedures.
Illustration of personas

Description of a persona profile

Finally, by the means of passive, descriptive variables the designing of single user-profiles right up to archetypical users (= personas) are determined. Personas are attributed to concretely distinct sociodemographical features, needs and behaviours.

The personas can be illustrated as a tabular list of features. By photos and namings the personas get a “face” and become lively.

Compared to usual descriptions of target-groups, which just have information about grouped features and statistical calculated user-opinions, personas take a deeper step. They give an insight into psychographic data and expectations, targets and users’ behaviours.

Strengths of this method:

Personas help the team to project one’s thoughts into potential users and to keep this perspective during the complete design process.
They convey a homogenous appreciation about the users who become more “concrete” as a result. The team designs and programs for the typical users. Usually 4 to 6 people are sufficient.
The user value of (potential) functions, services and contents can be evaluated more precisely.
Decisions concerning the use of financial and personal instruments bases on gained data and not on subjective estimates.
For follow-up studies for instance user-lab-tests “representative” test subjects can be chosen.

What about the sample size?

The sample size depends on the chosen method for the data ascertainment. This can be determined by underlied qualitative or quantitative approaches of the persona creation.

How much time takes the implementation?

If the data ascertainment is already finished, the creation of the personas takes about 1 to 2 weeks.

What input do you have to provide?

Optimally you already have hypotheses or presumptions referred to your users or potential target-groups. On this base the questions can be concretised for the chosen data ascertainment method. We would like to work out these questions together with you in a workshop. Thereby we draw on our comprehensive project experiences for the creation of personas.

What do you receive from us?

Personas can be defined and illustrated in different ways. During the choice of illustration we orientate by your particular business and team culture.

Typically, personas can be illustrated as detailed descriptions with names, photos, personal profiles, targets and motivations. According to requirements they can be chosen in different forms and they are combinable each other: