As a consultant at the web development Digital Evolution Group, I’m fortunate enough to lead some pretty exciting Projects I wanted to share an excerpt from a recent abstraction I put together with my team regarding the identification of persona to guide the design of a website (below). If you use demographics or target audiences to design a website — you are likely to find yourself short changing or leaving your visitors with an unfulfilled experience when they visit your site. By identifying persona you are able to take it a step further by understanding needs and context of the users visit. I should also note, persona is only one component of several steps that makeup our methodology of designing a website, it is vital to the process (You’re also free to download this whitepaper if you’d like).

A persona incorporates the demographic and psychographic attributes of a type of website end-user (“target audience”), as well as that end-user type’s context of visit, expectations, and business situation.

Every successful web project prioritizes the end-user experience above all else. As such, you must design the website from the end-user’s perspective. Therefore, it is important to understand the demographics, psychographics, emotional/practical needs, and expectations of the end-users for which the project is intended (collectively, the “personas”, a more expansive term than “target audiences”). In this way, features and content can be designed that meets the personas’ needs and achieves the project’s strategic objectives.

• + demographic info
  + psychographic info
  + context of visit
  + expectations
  equals= PERSONA

You might think of it this way:

Imagine you are a 24-year old Caucasian male who has just landed at an airport. You have been on the plane for three hours, and need to find the quickest method of getting downtown. You take an escalator down to the main platform where you are presented with three signs: Trains, Tickets, Toilets. In this case, the set of tasks or expectations you have when you get the airport have been addressed. Based on the design of the airport, the expectations you had when leaving the airplane have been met.

However, meeting baseline expectations is only the beginning. The quality and cleanliness of the bathroom, the clarity of the train maps and the length of the line to the ticket counter is also important. Each feature must be simple and effective to leave a positive impression.

In this example, the demographics of a white 24-year-old male are certainly nice to have, but not wholly sufficient to design the layout of the entire airport. The above scenario could also be valid for a 24 year old female. This single visitor type does not provide enough information regarding the aggregate number of tasks and expectations that need to be considered during a visit to the airport.

Demographics are certainly vital in regards to task execution. For example, if the architect knows both males and females may potentially visit the airport, the term “Toilets” will allow the visitor(s) to find the restrooms. However, additional directions to two different restrooms will eventually be needed. “Trains” will allow most users to find the train platform, but once there, the destination for each user will be different.
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