Astound Commerce- International Personas
Astound Commerce set out to define their client’s international persona set in adult toy industry to understand what their visitors try to achieve and how they perceive the website.
I worked solo for this project analysing the data gathered in the UK, USA and Australia between 2015-June 2019. I then implemented the research findings into six personas based on their common characteristics and demographics, goals and frustrations. I also envisioned a new draft set of personas including LGBT, BAME, older people and people with accessibility needs, to nudge the web designer and stakeholders empathise with diverse adult needs.
Understand.
AC was looking to understand “What are users trying to achieve when going on the website? The resulting personas would help define UX priorities and approach on the client’s website redesign. To understand the problem space, I reviewed the data gathered in the UK, USA and Australia between 2015-June 2019. The dataset included past user tests, data analytics, market segment reports, brand tracker and the experience map for new customers.
Create.
To design for ‘International personas,’ I looked for past work on both in academia and the industry.
‘the persona method could benefit from creating narratives that focus more on the similar practices enacted by international users and less on perceived differences in national culture’ –Jensen, I. et al.
I then noted differences in behaviours and coded them according to each country. Collective user actions and patterns of motivations helped me assemble personas and shape four behavioural variables. Behavioural differences indicated the “weakest persona” that when satisfied, all other personas would benefit from such a design. For example, USA users are more oriented to price comparison than their UK counterparts, therefore designing a price comparison would help both users’ decision.
Following Jensen’s work, I created a generic description of personas that could fit any of the three cultures, while purposefully avoided defining their country of origin. In the same fashion, I named them and assigned an image to them. However, I intentionally chose images with black, white and LGBT representations to illustrate how the team may include and consider their needs redefining the UX priorities further.
Last, I wrote scenarios for the personas to create a clearer understanding of what the users do concerning what goals Lovehoney wants to achieve (Nielsen et al., 2013).
Deliver.
I have delivered six personas to define AC’s client UX priorities in answer to the brief.
Outcome: These included a set of provisional personas based on data that emerged from the USA and Australia market segments. A persona with challenging health and accessibility issues and a young, married and sexually immature persona, especially prevalent in Australia. I also envisioned, included and represented the needs of LGBT, older people.
Last, I identified four distinct user behaviours across markets which helped illustrate key goals and behaviour patterns of the primary and secondary personas.