How user personas can help crystallise the early stage design process

B2B UX Case Study – Automotive Dealer Portal

I was recently asked to provide insight for a dealer portal for a very large automotive client. There was a definite opportunity in their market to improve their internal front end offering – but very early on it was clear there was a lack of understanding of who their audience was. How their needs and wants differed and what, as customers, they were looking for.

So, before deep-diving in the UX,  I produced a selection of personas to focus down the teams expectations and unite the groups thinking. I’m taking for granted that we are all aware that personas represent a typical user, based on user research and incorporate user goals, needs, and interests. Here I created four (4) personas, Hilary, Gary, Donald and Bernie;

1.1 – Hillary, a Competitive Owner / Consider

1.2 – Gary – First time buyer

1.3. – Donald – Online buyer / conquest

1.4. – Bernie – Existing owner

Key persona user journey

In this example, I have included below a mapped out detailed version ONE of these personas below. For the sake of argument I have chosen Hilary, but each of other three are equally important.

Here I dealt with “About Me” scenario

1. Find a person like me
2. Customise for my Family
3. Overcome fear

And finally this example concentrates on “Find a person like me”

Personas enable you to design for customers with accuracy and confidence. Your goal is to create a shared understanding of just who you work for and how everyone can better serve them and result in you designing a much better product or service. Watch this space next month as I’ll then be detailing how these scenarios help inform the UX.