As a researcher at Cvent, we knew we needed to refine our proto-personas to be more data-driven and representative of our customers. After combing through piles of information we gathered by talking to customers, we refined the personas to better match our users.
Data-Driven Personas
Create a common language to discuss common user types and their key behaviors and motivations.
Project Goal
Define Needs: 4 weeks
Design Study: 1 month
Perform Study: N/A (ongoing)
Data Analysis: N/A (ongoing)
Overall: Ongoing
TimeFrame
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Website Analytics
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Longitudinal Studies
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Diary Studies
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Discussions with client-facing roles such as Customer Success and Customer Service
Methodologies
The Goal
For several years, the designers at Cvent were still using proto-personas that they created on the fly to capture our users. This resulted in many duplicate personas, and sometimes designers did not realize that they were walking the same persona through different scenarios and giving it a new name.
The Challenges
In order to be data-driven, we had to go through data from all of our previous research to find existing patterns in the users. There was also the need for quick turnaround on this project since the new UX Director recognized the need to consolidate personas and allow the designers and PMs to speak the same language. Finally, these needed to be living personas which would be constantly updated as new information about our users emerged.
The process
Research
Since the majority of previous qualitative research had also been coded for user behaviors, it was easy to see what traits frequently occurred within a user type, how often that was related to other traits, and what was exclusive to other personas. This helped identify what was a "sub-persona" versus what merited its own persona. Then each persona was mapped out in relation to each other and how they interact on the event planning lifecycle.