The Key steps in creating your reader persona
By Gerry McGovern
The first step in developing successful reader personas is to decide what
readers you are not going to focus on. Good web management is often more about
what you exclude than what you include.
I know of a large organization that primarily targets four key markets offline,
yet targets 20 markets online. Its website isn’t great, with lots of
poor-quality, generic content. There is no marketing focus and consequently the
website delivers precious little in results.
The Web is about self-service and self-service is about simplicity and
convenience. You’ve got a small screen and every time you add something extra to
that screen you make the world more complicated for your reader. You must make
very difficult choices if you want your website to work. You can’t serve
everybody, and if you try to you will serve nobody.
Three readers best; five readers maximum
Aim to have no more than three core reader personas for your website, with a
maximum of five. Having three readers gives you a much better chance of creating
a simple self-service environment with clear messages that are immediately
evident to each reader.
Aerlingus.com is a successful low-cost airline. If you go to its website you
will find four clear market segments: Ireland, UK, Europe, USA. However, most of
the homepage shows offers for Irish people flying abroad, because for Aer Lingus,
this is the core market. Like other successful websites, Aer Lingus makes tough
decisions on who to target and who not to target.
The task is everything
Once you’ve identified your core readers, the next job is to identify their core
tasks. Again, you should not have more than three tasks per reader, and ideally
one dominant task. On the eBay homepage there are three key tasks: Find, Buy,
Pay. When you go to Google, there is one: Search.
On the Web, the task is everything and you must focus relentlessly on it. Your
arch enemies are statements like: “They might be interested in this; Some people
come to our website looking for information.” Nobody that matters comes to your
website looking for information. They come because they have a task they want to
complete. All information must serve task completion. Websites that are full of
aimless, vague information are a waste of time, effort and money. They should be
shut down.
Put a face on your reader
Give your core readers names and faces. Buy some stock photography or do some
photography yourself. Give a little background on John or Mary, and clearly
articulate their tasks. What you want to create is a set of fictional characters
who will become part of the daily conversation. This is vital. Your characters
must be integrated into the day-to-day thinking of the staff responsible for the
website.
This is another reason why you should try and not have more than three key
readers. If you ask your team to get to know and understand three reader
personas, that’s feasible. If you ask them to get to know ten reader personas,
that’s highly improbable.
Our very nature leads us on an inward journey, so we need to work hard every day
to ensure that we focus outward, and genuinely make the customer king.
Developing reader personas helps us do that.
©2005 Gerry McGovern
Gerry McGovern
provides website content management solutions |
