Stephen Abram, Dysart & Jones

OLA Personas and Strategy

Making Personas Work for OLA

Business results depend on satisfying members

You are not your average member

Learning about members requires direct contact

Knowledge about members must be actionable

Decisions should be based on members

Personas bring focus

Personas

build empathy

Personas encourage consensus

Personas create efficiency

Personas lead to better decisions

Personas for DesignPrograms and conferences, interaction design, visual design, content development, user testing

Personas for MarketingFramework for marketing campaigns, branding, messaging, market research

Personas for StrategyFramework for business decisions,offerings, channel usage, features

Creating Personas

The Landscape of User Research and TestingUser Interviews

QUALITATIVE (INSIGHTS)

GOALS & ATTITUDES(ASPIRATIONAL)

BEHAVIORS(ACTUAL)

User Surveys

Usability Testing

Site Traffic/Log File Analysis

Eye Tracking

Field Studies (Contextual Inquiry)

Shadow Shopping (Shop-Along)

Intercepts

Customer Support Data

Card Sorting

Focus Groups

Diary/Journal Studies

Participatory Design

User Advisory Panel

Automated Usability Testing

User Reports

Collages

QUANTITATIVE (VALIDATION)A/B Testing

Qualitative Personas

Member Interviews

• Cross-section of members, non-members, leadership, staff, other audiences

• 6 town halls is a good starting point• Informal, loosely structured conversations

User Interviews: Topics

• History and context• Goals and behaviors

▫ Needs/triggers for usage, typical process, channel usage, feature and content usage, gaps, wish list

• Attitudes and motivators▫ Description of experience, likes/dislikes, influencers, psychological

drivers• Opportunities

▫ Reaction to new ideas, features, content, improvements• Observation of actual behavior (field studies, usability tests)

Segmentation

Goals

Behaviors

Attitudes

Personas

Understand how people will actually use the site

Segmentation: Marketing vs. Personas

Marketing

Sell to people

Age

IncomeGender

Otherdemographics

Goals

Behaviors

Attitudes

Segmentation by Goals

What are different people trying to do with OLA?

Hierarchy of Goals

Other goals:• Read• Learn• Network

Be happyBe independentGrow your careerUnderstand processLearn about points

MotivatorMotivatorGoalNeedTask

Segmentation by Behaviors and Attitudes

How do users differ based on what they do or how they think?

Behaviors:• Frequency of activity• Frequency of visits to

the website• Learning event attendance

including SC• Division engagement for

various needs• Use of competitors

Attitudes:• Knowledge about

librarianship• Motivators affecting

users’ likelihood to use and attend

• Perception of the OLA brand

• etc.

Segmentation by Behaviors and Attitudes

Explore different combinationsF

req

uen

cy o

f O

LA

act

ivit

y

Knowledge about librarianship

The risk-taker who thinks he knows more than he actually does

The novice who needs a lot of guidance

The pro who wants to use site tools and doesn’t need help

The smart one who wants validation of what she already knows

Segmentation by Behaviors and AttitudesSegmentation

Leve

l of

pre

para

tion

Desired level of personal interaction

Me

Segmentation: The Tests

Your segments should…• Explain key differences you’ve

observed among members• Be different enough from

each other• Feel like real people• Be described quickly• Cover almost all users and

avoid edge cases• Clearly affect decision making

Qualitative Personas with Quantitative Validation

Surveys

Surveys: Who

• Cross-section of members and non-members• Goal: Completions of surveys and town halls

Surveys: What

• Questions to gather data on segmentation attributes (dependent variables)▫ Goal for using OLA site, SC and programs.

Importance of each possible goal to the user▫ Knowledge of librarianship (age/stage)

Age, stage, need User’s self-perception of their expertise needs

• Questions to test the segmentation against (independent variables)▫ Other behaviors (site/channel usage, feature usage, etc.)▫ Other attitudes (toward OLA, about self, etc.)▫ New features and content to test

Surveys: What

Recommended order of questions:• Current goals, usage, and behavior, including channel usage• History with OLA and libraries• User of or importance of existing features and content• Satisfaction with existing OLA offerings• Importance of new features and content• Psychographic questions• Demographic questions

Site Traffic Analysis

• Entry pages• Referrers• Exit pages• Common paths• Feature usage• Search terms• Conversion rate• Duration• Frequency

Quantitative Nirvana: Complete User Portrait

• Survey data

What the user does

• Site traffic analysis• CRM data• Self-reported survey data

What the user says

What the user is worth • CRM data

• Self-reported survey data

Quantitative Personas

Quantitative Segmentation

Making Personas Real

Photos

www.sxc.hu www.morguefile.com www.istockphoto.com

Using Personas

Persona Document

Persona Cards

Life size Cutouts

Persona Cubicle

Other Ideas for Keeping Personas Alive

• Posters• Tchotchkes• Day-in-the-life photos, audio diaries, etc.• Role-playing• Quizzes• Staple to documents• Email addresses

Organizational Strategy

ProcessOpportunities

• Personas• Scenarios• Use cases• Programs• Features and Functions• Structure

Process

• Training• Orientation• Conference sessions

Features and Functionality

Structure

Testing and Measuring Success

• QA process• Usability testing• Log files• Survey• Predictive modeling

Stephen Abram, MLS, FSLAConsultant Dysart & Jones

Cel: 416-669-4855Stephen.abram@gmail.com

Stephen’s Lighthouse Bloghttp://stephenslighthouse.com

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Thanks