In the previous session we looked at creating the design brief. In this section we will look at Personas.

Download a PDF version of this lesson (26k) Personas. This lesson is a sample from the manual.

How to write content

User Habits

The internet, email and text messaging are among the most profound influencers of reading and writing behaviour in the past hundred years.
It’s important to recognise that website users have specific characteristics and ensure that your writing and content reflects this.

• Volume of information
  There are more pages of information on the internet than anyone can read in a lifetime. Therefore people have become highly selective about what they read and use search engines to hone in on the stuff they want.
• Criticality
  Experience has taught people that there is a significant amount of “garbage” on the internet, so they have little patience with poor grammar, spelling or verbose writing.
• Information Snacking
  Users are often searching for something specific and tend to scan and skim pages quickly.

At WebSuburb we have developed a five-stage process for putting content together.
• Personas – how to develop a short description of your target user
• Wireframes – content bullet points for each page
• Design brief – design objectives and preferences
• Grey scale storyboard – review to ensure meets objectives
• Colour pages – review for final proofing

Personas - figuring out who you’re writing for

Personas are representations of the typical user of your website, ie. your target market. The persona seeks to define the target user so that you can more accurately figure out their goals, needs and wants. You should feel that you know the person from the persona description. Consider including a photograph to represent the person.
Try to be as objective as possible, avoid stereotyping and be prepared to think outside the square. For example, if you sell designer jeans for women, consider that a valuable market segment may be men looking for a gift for their partner. These customers may require significantly more assistance to complete a successful purchase.
We have developed a checklist approach covering demographic and psychographic indicators to make this process easier to accomplish. A simple Excel template with these questions can be downloaded from our website.

• Demographics – fairly straightforward, the main aim is to help you build a picture in your mind.
• Technical – to make sure we create pages that scan well.
• Psychographic – identify the issues here as accurately and clearly as possible. This is where the most of your content ideas will come from.
• 7 touches – most customers need to build confidence before they will buy into something. Your website needs to plan the 7 touches for a user to build confidence.
• Keywords – the keywords that our target persona will use when using a search engine. Start with an informal survey of friends, close customers and business associates. We will glean these from Google analytics in due course.
• Trigger words – keywords plus those emotive words that convince users to follow your calls to action.

Examples – select a few of your current customers to form a clearer picture of this persona in your mind.

 

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