Does your company know the three to seven personas representative of your website visitors and customers? I recently read a fantastic definition of the concept of persona by Jakob Neilsen. Here it is: “A persona is a fictional character representative of a unique group of users who share common goals.”
In other words, if you were to describe your common website visitor on the stage of your website play, how would your depict these characters or actors? Keep in mind he talks of a fictional actor. This actor or character represents customer groups that share both common traits and goals. Neilsen goes on in more detail when he states the following:
These user archetypes should ideally be based on qualitative, ethnographic user research in order to include accurate behaviors, environments, attitudes, and needs of real users. Personal details such as a name, photo, and specific contextual narratives should be combined with a description of gender, age, marital status, job title, device ownership, and other demographic information to create an easy-to-imagine, relatable character.*
Try to magine your customers and visitors in their actual environments where they work, live, and play. Describe them as Sally the soccer mom or Tom the techie. Place them in an age group and occupation that’s easy to picture in your mind. For example, just by describing “Bob the active biker and recreational boomer,” one imagines a male in his fifties or sixties riding either his mountain bike or Harley. Creating the persona tells the individual story. When you better understand and imagine the person behind the persona, you can better connect your product to the persona.
Fiction is more imagination than fact, however fiction is often based on fact. What you imagine almost becomes real. Imagine your visitors and customers. Understand their personas and they become real much faster.
And remember, real customers spend real money.
By Stuart Atkins
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