Personas
Posted: March 20th, 2015In creating a more usable website, it is important to speak directly with your users. But how can you be in constant communication with all of your users all of the time? One method of addressing this issue is the practice of creating personas. Personas are realistic representations of user groups, based on usability research (UX). They are fictional people with names, pictures, demographic data, goals and challenges.
There are many benefits to having personas. According to usabilty.gov:
Personas help to focus decisions surrounding site components by adding a layer of real-world consideration to the conversation. They also offer a quick and inexpensive way to test and prioritize those features throughout the development process.
Our Personas
At the Library, we have developed four personas to date, who each represent distinct user groups. We currently have personas for:
- Undergraduate students who use Library resources often, including the Library website
- Undergraduate students who tend to use the Library mostly for study space and key resources (such as Exambank)
- Faculty
- Graduate students
We initially developed the four personas in the summer of 2013 using data from the last 2 LIBQUAL surveys, Google Analytics and Queen’s Undergrad Admission stats. As part of the redesign, we have refined these initial personas using data from surveys and face-to-face interviews.
Attention Graduate Students!
We would really like to hear from you to help us address your needs. Please consider taking about two minutes to:
Featured Resource
Since 1998 Nielsen Norman Group has been a leading voice in the user experience field: conducting groundbreaking research, evaluating interfaces of all shapes and sizes, and guiding critical design decisions to improve the bottom line.
They are one of our top “go to” places for keeping up on usability trends. We particularly like their extensive collection of articles.
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