VOLUME 3 ISSUE 8
Did You Know
Sitewire has had an exciting month!
We were announced as a finalist for MediaPost's Creative Media Awards - Online Media Search category.
We won the W3 Silver Award for our work on The Irvine Company Apartment Communities' Rental-Living.com.
We won the Web Marketing Association's Outstanding Achievement in Web Site Development Award and Intranet Standard of Excellence Award for our work with the Irvine Company Apartment Communities on Rental-Living.com and MyRental-Living.com, respectively.
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Featured Client - Weil Lifestyles, LLC
Headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, Weil Lifestyle, LLC is the owner of the Web site www.drweil.com and is the exclusive worldwide licensor of distinctive products and services that are developed, reviewed and approved by Dr. Andrew Weil. Its mission is to be the leading resource for education, information, products, services and philanthropic contributions based on the principles of integrative medicine. The Web site features a Vitamin Advisor, Q&A archives, podcasts and a variety of health-related articles, recipes and more.
In addition to providing Weil Lifestyle, LLC with online marketing services, Sitewire provided the Weil team with a comprehensive Web site usability blueprint to assist in the redesign and development of the next iteration of the Weil online presence. By utilizing detailed customer profile information provided by the Weil team in addition to proprietary Sitewire research, we were able to gain rich understanding of the Weil Lifestyle audience. Sitewire then worked with the Weil team to apply User Engineering best practices to the audience profile.
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Why Build Personnas?
- Rich Spinabella
A persona is an archetypal user of a Web site that represents the needs of a larger group of users in terms of their goals and personal characteristics. Although personas are not real people, they act as 'stand-ins' for real users and help guide marketing decisions.
Personas are not simply created out of someone's imagination. They are defined by examining real data in a thorough investigation. They are given details that fit their profiles and are attributed goals that help guide interface design and the user experience. The personal details make them seem more realistic; more like describing a close friend rather than the cold list of market segment data.
While market segment information is used to develop personas, it is not the persona. Market segmentation might identify that 37% of women aged 25-35 want to book their next holiday online, and that competitive prices and access to quality accommodation will affect their purchasing decision.
A person, on the other hand, would show that Sally, age 27, wants to book her next holiday online but is concerned that the accommodation she chooses won't look the same as in the brochure, that they won't be close to restaurants and bars and that her online booking might not be accepted when she arrives. She also wants to be assured that she can cancel her booking 60 days before departure without incurring a penalty.
There will be far greater success designing an interface that meets the goals of one specific person, instead of trying to design for the various needs of many. Although it seems counterintuitive to design for just one person (real or not), studies show that as interfaces become more complex, designing for a single user creates more effective interfaces and user experiences.
As long as personas are developed with diligence, this planning and development tool has many benefits for interface design projects of all kinds. Personas focus the design effort on supporting user goals, rather than being driven by team members or senior executives. The benefits of using personas include:
- Users' (personas') goals become the common point of focus for the team when making design or user experience decisions.
- The team can concentrate on designing for a manageable set of personas (usually no more than 4, more often just one or two) knowing they represent the needs of many users.
- They are relatively quick to develop and replace the need to canvass a whole user community or spend months gathering user requirements. Note that they supplement but do not replace good requirements gathering.
- Personas help avoid building what users ask for versus what they will actually use.
- They help prioritize design decisions and settle disagreements on functionality by focusing the design effort on what the persona would do or want rather than on what the members of the team believe.
- Designs can be compared against personas' needs and goals, reducing the frequency of costly usability tests.
Personas give focus to interface design projects. Not only can they improve the development process by limiting a team's interpretation about a site's look and feel, personas can help define measurable goals in relation to the user, ground interface design decisions and focus a team's overall communication. When personas are used in combination with other methods, there is a strong likelihood that the resulting design will be far more effective.
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Featured Employee - Leslie Jackson
As Marketing Research Manager, Leslie Jackson stays current on industry news to ensure that Sitewire is up to speed on the latest trends in all areas of interactive marketing and advertising. She also researches and is an expert in cutting-edge services and tactics that are upcoming in the marketing realm. Leslie has been with Sitewire for over four years and has a strong background in e-mail and database marketing, pURL campaigns, campaign management tools and organic search engine marketing.
Away from the office, Leslie spends time with her husband, house load of animals (2 cats and 1 dog) and friends. She relaxes by attending yoga, spin and dance classes. When there is time, Leslie loves being crafty - whether that is painting pottery, scrap booking, fashioning gift baskets, decorating her house or landscaping the yard. She also enjoys golfing with her family and recently discovered a talent for water volleyball. Leslie participates in the Breast Cancer 3 Day Walk and is involved with the children's ministry at her church.
Read some of Leslie's recent contributions to the newsletter:
Recapture Lost Customers
SEO Detergent
Quick E-mail Tip
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