The Role of Personas In Succesful Scenario Design Forrester Research recently asked: What’s the trick to improving Web site usability? Users. A site can’t be judged “good” or “bad” in a vacuum — its value can only be determined by looking at how well it helps users get things done. That’s why Forrester believes firms should adopt scenario design. Scenario design helps users achieve their goals. How do you plan scenarios? Well, if you’re designing scenarios for a commercial Web site, one that demonstrates return on investment (ROI) by getting sales, leads, or registrants, you design persuasive scenarios by turning the information you have on your users into personas. “The American Heritage Dictionary” defines “persona” as: 1. A voice or character representing the speaker in a literary work. 2. The characters in a dramatic or literary work. 3. The role that one assumes or displays in public or society; one’s public image or personality, as distinguished from the inner self. Why We Define a Persona in Three Stages Personas created for a persuasive experience must initially be defined by completely understanding their needs. Their needs lead into creating character biographies that represent and convey their worldview, attitude, personality, and behavior. Personas are constructed from research that describes their demographics, psychographics, and topographics related to how they approach the buying decision process for the products or services offered. This provides insight into the language these individuals use. That is why keywords and trigger words for each of these personas also vary by where they are in the purchase consideration process. We tie keyword research back to our personas. The principle value of personas developed for the sales process is understanding how they approach the initiation of relationships, how they gather information, how they approach the decision-making process, what language they use, and how they prefer to obtain agreement and closure. We’re not concerned with what an interface looks like at this point. We use personas to define how people will arrive at the site and what questions they have and to connect them to the content that helps them buy the way they want to. How Personas Link to Content Sir Tim Berners-Lee, founder of the World Wide Web and author of Follow

There’s something special about opening a page that uses great typography and layout. The headline pops out at you, drawing you in. Through good use of spacing the text looks readable and inviting. The paragraphs are nicely chunked so you know you can read through them without losing your place. Images are given room to coexist on the page, and the caption text doesn’t blend in with the rest of the copy. All these elements combine into a feeling of acknowledgment of the reader by the designer — a recognition that for content to be truly read it has to breathe, unencumbered by short line heights, narrow columns, small font sizes and intrusive advertising. Given that most of the internet is still content-based, why is it then that there are so few really good examples of what I’ve just described above, especially on large, commercial, content-rich web sites? You know, like news and magazine sites? Below are some examples — not necessarily perfect — of sites that get it. They understand that to be effective, content has to be read, and to be read it has to be presented in a way that acknowledges and rises above the limitations of the medium in which it exists. 1. Business Week 2. Financial Post 3. The BBC 4. The New York Times 5. The Seattle Times 6. TIME As I mentioned, these examples are not perfect. Business Week’s paragraphs are a little too long. The BBC’s style is a little too functional (although very readable). I’m personally not a huge fan of The Seattle Times’ choice of Arial as a body copy font. However, they do get most of it right — oh, and these screenshots do not do them justice. I’m sure I’ve missed some great examples of well implemented web typography on large, commercial web sites. Please let me know in the comments. Posted on: January 29, 2008 | 13 Comments Follow