Personas
Inspire and inform the development of products and services with research-based personas that represent key customer behaviours, needs and motivations
At U1, we define a persona as a research-informed description of a potential customer or user of your services or products.
Based on actual characteristics, our personas instil empathy and understanding toward your customers – essential for those developing successful digital experiences.
While exact definitions and creation methods vary, we develop personas based on research as a part of a wider strategy to improve engagement with your users and customers.
Personas represent your current and potential user or customer base, and their intended purpose is to provide a tool for inspiration in the design or improvement of services and products.
Qualitative research with your customers and potential customers is the only way to inform personas. Methods such as interviews, workshops and mobile ethnography can help us to understand what belongs in your unique persona set, and how many personas you need to consider.
Information about your users that we might use to develop personas includes:
- Online and offline behaviour
- Experience with your organisation and its channels
- Attitude toward your services/products
- Information or service needs
- Triggers and motivations
- Concerns or passions
This makes personas very different from traditional marketing segments, which represent your current customer base and focus on demographic identifiers first (name, age, location, income) and soft attributes like behaviours and motivations second.
Strategic Persona Framework
Develop a strategic framework for your persona set to recognise gaps and identify desired movement toward your ideal customer
It is important to consider the overall customer engagement strategy when developing personas. To support this, a framework can be developed to demonstrate how each persona fits into your potential customer base.
This framework is unique to your customers as the axes and key sections are based on their needs and potential relationships with your organisation, as identified through research.
As you meet and learn about individual customers in future, you should be able to imagine them somewhere on the framework and in turn know how to assist them.
The U1 Toolkit
To provide you with the clearest possible insights and help you deliver real outcomes, we tailor each project to include the right methods and activities from our extensive toolkit.
