Researching For Effective Customer Personas

An important part of UX design is creating personas. Personas are fictional characters that we generate in order to represent various types of users that may use your product, website, or brand in a similar way. This gives the designer the ability to focus on a memorable and manageable set of characters. This is extremely beneficial in determining the limitations, goals, and wants of users so you can create a better experience, for example, you can improve the visual design, interactions, and features of your website. Below, you will find a guide on creating effective customer-led personas. 

Analyse attitudes and behaviours

The first part of the process is the research stage where you will attempt to identify patterns or trends in user motivations, expectations, and behaviours. This is critical of any guide to user research, as it forms the basis of your personas. There are various approaches you can use to gather this important information, such as:

Conduct interviews 

You can interview real users to gather data. You need to carefully decide whom you are going to interview. The number of users you need to interview depends on the variety of people that use your website. If a lot of your users differ in terms of their needs, you are going to need to interview a larger number of people. Moreover, you should consider both potential and current users when it comes to re-design projects. Web builders are the easiest option for such re-design quests. You will know it is time to stop when you start getting the same answers repeatedly. Regarding the interviews themselves, they should last for around an hour, giving you enough time to get all of the information you need. 

What to ask during the interview:

You should avoid questions that ask the users what they want or what they think about the design of your website. Instead, here is a list of the types of things you should be asking about:

About the person:

•    Their age

•    Their job

•    Their interests

•    Their hobbies

•    Their family

•    Their goals and motivations

•    Their beliefs

•    Their attitudes 

•    Their skill level, particularly in regards to technology 

•    What their typical day looks like

•    How much time they have

About your website’s domain:

•    What they like best about the website’s domain

•    Their frustrations 

•    Their level of interaction when completing a task in relation to the domain

So, let’s say you are creating a website for a hair salon, you’ll want to ask questions like…

•    What do you like best about getting your hair done?

•    What frustrates you the most about booking an appointment on the Internet? (You should also enquire about their offline frustrations)

•    Do you make your own decisions when choosing a salon or do you interact with anyone else? (i.e. family recommendations, review websites and such like)

Quantitative methods 

You can use quantitative research when surveying business stakeholders and users. This approach does have its limitations, as you will not be able to delve into the behaviours and attitudes of the user, which is critical. However, it will give a substantial quantity of demographic data, which you can use to identify any trends. This form of research can supplement the other techniques. 

Market research

It is a good idea to interview the market research specialists at your organisation and review any market research that has already been conducted. Why? Well, these are the individuals at your business that are likely to have a considerable amount of interaction with your end users, and thus they may be able to provide you with some valuable information, as they may have noticed patterns in the behaviours and attitudes of your users. Asking the right questions is vital; don’t simply ask the market research department to create the personas for you, but be sure to tap into their knowledge.

Interview business stakeholders 

This leads to the next part perfectly; you should interview any business stakeholders that engage in regular interaction with your users. Your stakeholders are likely to hold an abundance of knowledge, and this is why it is a good idea to get them involved as soon as possible. 

Out of all of the approaches that have been mentioned, interviewing is undoubtedly the main one. However, it is always advisable to use a variation of techniques – this is critical if the interview phase is not plain sailing for you.

Demographics

Traditionally, products, websites included, would be developed and marketed based on demographics and market segmentation. Businesses would operative via a one-size-fits-all approach; that all customers in the one demographic would be content with the message, functionality, and features of their website. However, this is no longer the case, as the marketplace is now one that is focused on mass customisation as opposed to being a mass manufacturing. Therefore, the development of personas is required to accurately identify the desires and needs of the consumer. Nevertheless, this does not mean that demographics are ignored, as they play an important role in building personas. 

In fact, you are advised to start with demographics when you build personas. It helps you to build a more personal and clearer picture of your consumer, and it is also one of the easier bits of information to attain. So, what sort of personal demographics should be interested in? Let’s take a look:

•    Are you male or female?

•    Where do you live?

•    How old are you?

•    Are you married?

•    Do you have children?

•    What is your annual household income?

•    Where do you live? Rural, suburban, urban?

•    What is your level of education?

This all helps you to create a clearer picture regarding the type of people your website appeals to. You may notice patterns and trends once you come to assess your personas in the future. For instance, you may notice that a certain age range struggles with a particular element of your website. Or, you may determine that those in a specific household income bracket have different needs when using your website. Without demographics, assessing your data and determining any key trends would be extremely difficult. 

So, how do you gather this information? There are various options you have at your disposal. You can conduct your interviews in person or over the phone. Another option is to conduct an online survey in order to acquire the data that you need. This is a popular choice because it is much more comfortable for those that are filling out the survey. They may not feel comfortable disclosing information about how much they earn face-to-face, for example. Another option is to use Google Analytics. You will be able to gather some of the data you need by using this platform, as you can find out the likes of your visitors’ gender, age, affinity, and where they live. All you need to do is head to the ‘Audience’ section of Google Analytics.

When putting together your persona, basic demographic information is going to be the first thing you fill in. What will you include? Firstly, you will need to put in the background information about the person, i.e. where they work, how long they work there, if they are married and how long they have been married, as well as any children they have. You then need to enter their demographics; this includes their name age, where they live – the type of area it is, and their income. If you have interviewed the person directly or over the phone, you may want to make some extra notes, i.e. identifiers, such as details on their demeanour.

All in all, the start of any UX design project is to make sure you get to know your consumers. You do this through analysing attitudes and behaviours, as well as collating demographic data.