• our methodology
• user research
• persona development
• competitive analysis
• heuristic analysis
• usability testing

Discovery: User Persona Development

We mold user research to drive extraordinary creative results through the development of a "persona". A persona is a fictional character created to represent a particular market segment. This character is given a name, picture, biography and personality. Sandstorm Design uses personas in the same way that an actor looks at a role. Before deciding on a creative direction, questions are posed related to a specific persona's motivation, needs and biases to guarantee the usability of a particular web site or application.

Personas provide a noticeable advantage by creating a face to represent an entire group. It can be difficult considering a whole audience's point of view, but from the perspective of a persona (or a face to represent an entire group), it makes the audience seem more real. Our creative team asks the question "What would Rita do?" instead of "What would real estate agents, aged 37 - 58, with over $2M in sales, 10+ years experience, living on the west coast, do?" Personas result in creative designed for the user - view examples.

Our Methodology for Discovering Personas

1. Identify initial audiences and possible scenarios
2. Write protocol for research (may include interviews, surveys, card sorting, participatory design, etc)
3. Conduct research to gather insights to validate initial beliefs or discover new audiences and scenarios
4. Analyze results, build personas and list of scenarios
5. Use personas as references for usability testing
   
6. Build experience from personas, scenarios and usability research results

To see how user persona development differs from traditional demographics, request a quote on User Persona Development today.

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