Comments on: Dear Confused By Personas

By: หางาน

หางาน — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 10:50:52 +0000

Thanks so much for the depth and understanding at which you covered the topic.
it’s a useful piece of information not only for me but for many others.

By: Henry

Henry — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 07:28:11 +0000

wonderful post
I think this sentence “keep the goal in mind: more conversion, more sales, more leads” is really useful.
thanks for the sharing

By: FAQ Page = Sign Warning Drivers of Pothole | FutureNow's GrokDotCom / Marketing Optimization Blog

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 20:07:00 +0000

[...] they are asked, so look at the page in terms of why visitors would be on that page. Note that a persona-based or scenario-based analysis helps with [...]

By: John Quarto-vonTivadar

John Quarto-vonTivadar — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 04:03:30 +0000

Dan, that’s not PA personas, that’s just segmentation with lipstick and called personas (cuz agencies can’t get 6 figures for just segmentation).

We had one client “back when” who came to us claiming they had 80-ish personas. Of course, it all turned out to be segmentation differentiated in one demogrpahic dimension.

Generally speaking, the typical topology will yield 4-7 personas, sometimes a few more in the most complex of situations. When PA is done right, it will “jump out at you” as to how to “reduce degeneracy”.

Note, that’s the physics use of the term ‘degnerate’ — as in “having the same energy despite having a different shape” — which I think sums it nicely.

By: Dan Croxen-John

Dan Croxen-John — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 12:04:36 +0000

Thanks from everyone on UBC course for your comments – they really helped.

Having seen a marketing agency’s perspective on personas, it appears they have decided to create personas per product line.

If we add product line into the equation we have, say

3 product lines

multiplied by

4 persona types

multiplied by

3 buying stages

That looks like 36 permutations and building blocks for the persuation architecture to work properly. My instinct would be to focus the two strongest/most common personas but to maintain the numbers of product lines and buying stages. What do others think ?

Regards

Dan

By: Suzy

Suzy — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:20:23 +0000

Can you repeat the part all about the things? (Favorite Homer Simpson quote).

Seriously though, I am going to have to print this out, sit down, and read it thoroughly considering it has come from a UBC Web Analytics course. I wish my University offered a course like that.

By: 4 steps to improve your online customer experience (Small Business E-Commerce Link Digest - June 26, 2009)

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:57:27 +0000

[...] gives one type of valuable customer view, while personas offer another. Bryan Eisenberg provided an excellent overview of how personas work that’s worth checking [...]

By: Daily Digest for June 24th | A Blog by John A. Lee

Daily Digest for June 24th | A Blog by John A. Lee — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 03:56:08 +0000

[...] Dear Confused By Personas | FutureNow’s GrokDotCom / Marketing Optimization Blog — 1:21pm via [...]

By: Jo

Jo — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:15:10 +0000

Interesting article but I am unable to open the pdf “Getting Started with Building Persona” – says file is corrupt. Are you able to fix the pdf file or link? Thanks.

By: Diane

Diane — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 17:21:58 +0000

Thanks for this! Great stuff.

By: Michelle Mercier

Michelle Mercier — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:14:16 +0000

Thank you for your comments!

By: Jeffrey Eisenberg

Jeffrey Eisenberg — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:06:51 +0000

The Persuasion Architecture whitepaper answers the question of what you do with opposing personas on a web page.

By: Chung-Wei Lee

Chung-Wei Lee — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:37:29 +0000

Great article. I was also wondering about these questions during the UBC course. One question – how do you cater for two opposing personas on a webpage? Wouldn’t the scent trail confuse the other personas?

Btw the “Getting Started with Building Persona” link is broken.