The user is always right : a practical guide to creating and using personas for the Web

How do we ensure that our Web sites actually give users what they need? What are the best ways to understand our users' goals, behaviors, and attitudes, and then turn that understanding into business results? Personas bring user research to life and make it actionable, ensuring we're making the right decisions based on the right information. This practical guide explains how to create and use personas to make your site more successful. The User Is Always Right: A Practical Guide to Creating and Using Personas takes you through each step of persona creation, including tips for conducting qualitative user research, new ways to apply quantitative research (such as surveys) to persona creation, various methods for generating persona segmentation, and proven techniques for making personas realistic. You'll also learn how to use personas effectively, from directing overall business strategy and prioritizing features and content to making detailed decisions about information architecture, content, and design.

• Acknowledgments p. vii
• Introduction, or the Author Converses with Himself p. xv
• Part I Introducing Personas p. 1
• Chapter 1 Putting the Using Back in User-Centered Design p. 3
• Step 1 Business Results Depend on Users p. 8
• Step 2 You Are Not Your Users p. 9
• Step 3 You Learn About Users Through Direct Contact p. 12
• Step 4 Knowledge About Users Must Be Actionable p. 13
• Step 5 Your Decisions Should Be Based on User Knowledge p. 15
• Chapter 2 Meet the Personas p. 17
• Benefits of Personas p. 22
• Personas Bring Focus p. 22
• Personas Build Empathy p. 23
• Personas Encourage Consensus p. 24
• Personas Create Efficiency p. 24
• Personas Lead to Better Decisions p. 26
• Two Quick Success Stories p. 29
• Beyond the Web p. 30
• Part II Creating Personas p. 33
• Chapter 3 Approaches to Creating Personas p. 35
• The User Research Landscape p. 36
• Qualitative Personas p. 41
• Pros p. 43
• Cons p. 43
• Use this approach if p. 44
• Qualitative Personas with Quantitative Validation p. 45
• Pros p. 47
• Cons p. 48
• Use this Approach if p. 49
• Quantitative Personas p. 49
• Pros p. 52
• Cons p. 53
• Use this approach if p. 53
• Chapter 4 Conducting Qualitative User Research p. 55
• Conducting Interviews p. 57
• Who to Interview p. 58
• Interview Logistics p. 63
• Interview Topics p. 64
• Output of Interviews p. 68
• Running Field Studies p. 69
• Performing Usability Tests p. 73
• Other Resources p. 74
• Chapter 5 Conducting Quantitative User Research p. 77
• The Value of Quantitative Research and Analysis p. 78
• Planning Quantitative Research p. 83
• Qualitative Personas with Quantitative Validation p. 85
• Quantitative Personas p. 86
• Testing Other Hypotheses and Opportunities p. 89
• Conducting Surveys p. 93
• Who to Survey p. 94
• Designing the Survey p. 98
• Deploying the Survey p. 105
• Cleaning and Preparing Survey Data p. 106
• Performing Site Traffic Analysis p. 109
• Analyzing CRM Data p. 112
• Chapter 6 Generating Persona Segmentation p. 117
• Testing Segmentation Options p. 120
• Creating Qualitative Segmentation p. 122
• Segmenting by Goals p. 123
• Segmenting by Usage Lifecycle p. 126
• Segmenting by Behaviors and Attitudes p. 128
• Conducting Quantitative Validation of Qualitative Segmentation p. 132
• Applying Quantitative Segmentation p. 138
• 1 Select the Attributes p. 141
• 2 Choose the Number of Segments p. 143
• 3 Turn the Crank for Segmentation Options p. 144
• 4 Evaluate the Segmentation Options p. 152
• 5 Profile the Segments p. 154
• A Few Examples p. 157
• Chapter 7 Making Personas Real p. 161
• Revealing Key Differentiators p. 162
• Creating a Name p. 167
• Finding a Photo p. 170
• Showing Personal Information p. 175
• Presenting Domain-Specific Information p. 178
• Specifying Computer and Internet Usage p. 180
• Writing a Profile p. 181
• Using Additional Attributes p. 184
• Crafting a Quote p. 185
• Adding Business Objectives p. 186
• Prioritizing the Personas p. 188
• Writing Scenarios p. 190
• Part III Using Personas p. 199
• Chapter 8 Keeping Personas Alive p. 201
• Creating the Persona Document p. 202
• Presenting Personas p. 203
• Living with Personas p. 213
• Chapter 9 Directing Business Strategy p. 217
• Why Apply Personas to Business Strategy? p. 219
• Using Personas for Business Strategy p. 224
• A Framework for Directing Business Strategy p. 227
• Chapter 10 Scoping Features and Functionality p. 233
• Brainstorming Scope p. 234
• Prioritizing Scope p. 239
• Conducting a Competitive Feature Analysis p. 240
• Creating a Scope Matrix p. 243
• Chapter 11 Guiding Structure, Content, and Design p. 247
• Establishing Structure: Information Architecture and Interaction Design p. 248
• Performing Task Analysis p. 249
• Producing Use Cases p. 252
• Creating Site Structure and Page Structure p. 254
• Defining Navigation p. 258
• Designing Site Search p. 262
• Creating Content p. 263
• Shaping Visual Design p. 268
• Chapter 12 Measuring Success p. 273
• Testing Before Launch p. 274
• Testing After Launch p. 276
• Index p. 283