Our Methodology for Developing User Personas
We mold user research to drive extraordinary creative results through the development of a "persona." A user persona (also called a UX persona) is a fictional character created to represent a particular market segment. This character is given a name, picture, biography, and personality. Sandstorm uses personas in the same way that an actor looks at a role. Before deciding on a creative direction for the UX design concepts, questions are posed related to a specific persona's motivation, needs, and biases to guarantee the usability of a particular website or application.
Personas provide a noticeable advantage by creating a face to represent an entire group, and can be an ideal to way gather content and functional requirements, and prioritize features. It can be difficult considering a whole audience's point of view, but from the perspective of a persona (or a face to represent an entire group), it makes the audience seem more real.
Our UX and creative team ask the question "What would Rita do?" instead of "What would a pediatrician, 37–58 years old, with a private practice, 15+ years experience, living on the West coast, do?" Personas result in a user experience designed for the user.
Our methodology for developing user personas:
- Identify initial audiences and possible scenarios
- Write protocol for the research (may include in-depth user research, surveys, card sorting, participatory design, etc.)
- Schedule participants, mock the study with the moderator and note taker
- Conduct research to gather insights to validate initial beliefs or discover new audiences and scenarios
- Analyze results, build personas and list of scenarios
- Use personas as references for recruiting participants for usability testing
- Design the UX from the user personas, scenarios, and usability research results
To see how UX persona development differs from traditional demographics, request a proposal on user persona development today.
