Features

Creating Personas for International Audiences

May 13, 2016

By Gustav Verhulsdonck

Increasingly, technical communicators need to design mobile content for international audiences in different locations. This situation poses challenges as individuals often use various mobile devices to access such content while in transit. The resulting challenges include designing content that represents the user’s location, and that is personalized, responsive, and accessible through mobile phones, tablets, and desktops. Such factors are complex within the context of one culture. When expanded to international audiences, they can become daunting. Technical communicators could thus benefit from approaches that can help them better understand the international contexts in which individuals use mobile devices.

Personas can offer a solution to such situations. In essence, personas are composite characters based on data about typical users, but written up to describe a fictional character (with a name, age, likes/dislikes, attitudes, needs, values and goals). Personas can help technical communicators better understand international users, for they provide a practical approach to understanding how certain users in a given culture might respond to a particular design. As such, they let technical communicators move beyond cultural generalizations when designing materials for international audiences.

What are personas?

Personas are rich, detailed characterizations of users, and they help technical communicators develop more robust designs of products like interfaces. The concept of a persona was devised by interface design pioneer Alan Cooper when he noticed how designers would often base design choices on what they thought a potential user might do, while not attending to what actual users did in their designs. In the design process, personas are written out characters with their own backstory of specific skills, emotions, attitudes, physical environment, and specific goals (Nielsen, 2014). By focusing on such details, personas allow technical communicators to think beyond typical user-scenarios and consider the concrete elements that might affect given users during the course of their day. Personas thus help individuals create better designs by considering the skills, feelings, ideas, physical contexts, and outcomes of very specific, demanding audiences—their personas.

The benefit of personas is that they help technical communicators to:

  • Develop a stronger focus on specific user goals;
  • Consider a design as located in a specific physical context;
  • Develop a better understanding of the diverse purposes for using a design; and
  • Make better design decisions overall by considering the multiple uses of a design.

In other words, personas allow technical communicators to expand the function of their design by getting them to think in terms of how their persona would approach the design in a specific context or situation (e.g., using an app that provides driving directions while driving vs. while sitting in one’s home).

How are personas created?

In the software industry, personas are often used as a “lens” to test how a given group of individuals might use a particular design. The process consists of two steps:

  • Step 1: Develop a persona—Gather demographic information on typical users and then create a persona’s characteristics.
  • Step 2: Develop a scenario of use—Use the persona’s characteristics to write out a scenario that describes how that persona would interact with a particular design (e.g., use a given interface).

For this process, designers first use surveys, ethnographies, interviews, and other data collection methods to gather background information on typical users. Designers then use this data to create various personas—fictitious characters—that can provide insights on how certain users will interact with a design. The idea is that while a persona is a composite figure comprised of demographic and fictional biographic elements, every persona is considered a real, flesh-and-blood person for design purposes. In fact, many designers hang pictures of their favorite personas on their walls to remind them who they are designing for and what these people may need in a design. Such pictures might be computer generated, sketched, or stock images that represent how a particular kind of user might look.

How are personas used?

After describing the characteristics of their personas, technical communicators can develop scenarios in which a particular persona (type of user) might use a certain design (e.g., try to use a particular interface to log into a system). They create such scenarios to better understand their design from the perspective of a particular persona and the context in which that persona would likely use the related design. In other words, the persona creates a specific context of use associated with a particular persona/group of users. The use scenario thus provides the designer with insights on how that persona might use a given design. The resulting insights can uncover unexpected situations and create additional design ideas.

Various organizations use personas to tailor their content to specific kinds of users. Apple and Hubspot, for example, use personas to tailor to specific customers as audiences. Similarly, the British and the Dutch governments use personas to improve the online and onsite services they offer citizens. These organizations do this by analyzing how they can improve their marketing, online presence, and total customer experience through reviewing different kinds of data (demographics and visitor analytics) collected in different ways (through social media and questionnaires) (Lee, 2014). Such approaches allow them to develop personas for a more nuanced understanding of who an audience is and what that audience needs.

How can personas help us understand international users?

To understand how cultures approach mobile content, one must move beyond simple audience analysis or generalizations of behavior. Early Web design approaches focused on culture-specific elements like colors, symbols, or concepts as related to cultural expectations of static design. Today, however, technical communicators need to consider how online interaction often involves a range of technologies used to engage in real-time exchanges with individuals located all over the globe. Moreover, designs now have to work on mobile, tablet, and desktop screen sizes and do so in a uniform manner on a global scale.

This situation creates new opportunities for developing personas that help address such global contexts. Technical communicators must now consider how an understanding of cross-cultural use is essential to mobile design decisions (St.Amant & Rice, 2015; Dutta & Das, 2015). To this end, Guiseppe Getto and Kirk St.Amant suggest developing personas for global communication contexts. These personas would address how cultural and technological factors influence individual acceptance of a design. Technical communicators could use these personas to address cultural, technological infrastructures and local use factors when creating designs for different nations and regions.

To address mobile designs in a changing global landscape, technical communicators need to ask key questions associated with how people use mobile designs and wireless technologies in a particular area. These questions should include:

  • What existing technologies do people strongly associate with their local culture? (Culture)
  • How do people identify themselves (e.g., as individual user or as part of a group)? How does this identification affect their willingness to embrace global changes? (Globalization)
  • What technologies are available based on existing technological infrastructure? (Infrastructure)
  • What local and cultural beliefs and values affect technology use? (Local Use)

Personas designed to address these questions locate the user in a specific context where factors of culture, globalization, infrastructure, and technology provide important insights on a particular context of use. This is because local use affects how a design is received.

Developing such personas for international users involves:

  • Identifying how existing technologies (and their designs) are used in a culture.
  • Understanding how much the members of a culture are open to change.
  • Determining what infrastructures exist, their reliability, and their effects on technology use.
  • Assessing what local beliefs and values create expectations for a design.

By addressing such factors when developing international personas, technical communicators can better determine how certain groups in different nations and regions perceive and use mobile designs in various contexts.

How can we implement personas?

The following scenario provides a step-by-step example of how technical communicators can apply personas when designing for users in international contexts. The steps include how to:

  • Write and develop a persona;
  • Write a use scenario to narrate how that persona interacts with that design given their characteristics; and
  • Use input from that scenario in creating a more robust design.

The scenario described below uses the design of a mobile application (app) to be used in the particular international context in the Netherlands.

Step 1: Identify the Context of Use

Astrid needs to design a mobile device application that helps customers catch their bus in the small country of the Netherlands. She begins by considering a simple and straightforward design. After all, people who are catching the bus need to be able to do so very quickly and while on the go.

Astrid considers her mobile app needs to consist of three pieces of input:

  1. Current location
  2. End destination
  3. Travel time (e.g., time when next available bus arrives at location)

To use the app, individuals enter their starting address and the address of their desired destination. Next, they use a drop-down menu to select a desired travel time (how long to get from start point to end point) and then click a “search” button. The app then provides the address of the closest bus station, the next available time of departure for the desired destination, and the anticipated time of arrival at that destination. Using this prototype of her interface design, Astrid now needs to create a persona in order to revise her prototype into a stronger design.

Step 2: Create a User Persona

In order to create her persona, Astrid collects demographic information about typical Netherlands-based users for her mobile application. After doing some research, she realizes the following:

  • Mobile phone use is quite accepted and integrated into Dutch culture (according to World Bank data, there are 116 mobile phone subscriptions per 100 people).
  • The average Dutch person identifies her- or himself as an individual first, then as part of a group.
  • The Dutch are quick to accept new technologies into their lives and are quick to respond to global developments (e.g., using Whatsapp for neighborhood watch).
  • Due to the country’s small size, mobile phone infrastructure is quite strong.
  • Free wireless coverage is widely available at home, work, and in public places (such as Dutch national railways) and is valued.

For her persona, Astrid develops a profile of a typical mobile device user in the Netherlands:

Najib, 56 years old, is a Dutch-Moroccan man who is a casual user of mobile apps and has just moved to a different city in the Netherlands. He does not feel confident with his mobile phone skills, but invests time in getting to know the features of his mobile device in order to learn. Also, he is not as familiar with his new surroundings, having just moved to a new apartment in the city of the Hague. He retains close ties with his family, who live in Amsterdam, by visiting them each weekend.

Step 3: Develop a Use Scenario

For her use scenario, Astrid writes out how Najib interacts with the app design based on Najib’s specific needs, attitudes, values, context, and overall goals. Astrid writes out Najib’s interaction based on these elements:

Najib wants to visit his family in Amsterdam. Because he has moved to a new neighborhood in the Hague, Najib is unsure of where the nearest bus location is and, at times, has difficulties spelling out the exact address where he is located due to having just moved. The interface prompts him to write out his current location, his destination, and select the time. Najib’s attitude is that he will learn this quickly after getting to know his new neighborhood in the Hague, but … he would like the app to help him if he does not know his immediate location. When he types in a location or destination, similarly named streets in different cities appear, and these take precious time and are somewhat confusing as these prompt a choice before searching. He needs to find his exact location on a map using his phone’s global positioning system (GPS), and to locate the nearest bus station and destination. When in Amsterdam, he knows his way around and can more easily connect with local transit.

Step 4: Use the Persona and the Use Scenario to Gather Input on the Design

As a result of describing her persona and having Najib (a fictional character) interact with her initial prototype design, Astrid considers implementing the following changes in her interfaces:

  • A map function accessible when the location field is selected for input, which can help users locate their current location more quickly without learning street names in new locations.
  • Predictive text input, which helps reduce typing errors.
  • Frequent searches and saving common routes, which can help people quickly find their most-traveled routes (such as Amsterdam).

In this way, personas help anticipate different international user expectations by looking at design contexts as problems of context—situations where information and design need to function in very specific, concrete settings.

Rather than address stereotypical ideas of what a global audience needs, personas can help technical communicators identify where an intended group of users is and what needs, attitudes, and values they have that affect perceptions of and uses of a given design. Such designs differ in that they may not tailor to specific cultural stereotypes as contexts. They are instead embedded in particular use scenarios—situations where technology, globalization, and infrastructure factor into how technologies are used in a particular context. As such, these personas can help technical communicators create content for mobile distribution in international settings.

Conclusion

Increasingly, technical communicators need to address international audiences who use mobile designs while on the go. Personas, in turn, can aid in making effective design choices for such contexts. By merging demographic data with the needs, attitudes, values, and goals of users, personas help technical communicators understand the contexts in which mobile content is used. Using such personas to guide design practices, technical communicators can develop more effective approaches to sharing mobile content in today’s global contexts.

References

Dutta, U., & S. Das. 2015. The Digital Divide at the Margins: Co-Designing Information Solutions to Address the Needs of Indigenous Populations of Rural India. Communication Design Quarterly 4.1: 36–48.

Getto, G., & K. St.Amant. 2014. Designing Globally, Working Locally: Using Personas to Develop Online Communication Products for International Users. Communication Design Quarterly 3.1: 24–46.

Lee, K. 2014. Marketing Personas: The Complete Beginner’s Guide. Buffersocial. http://blog.buggerapp.com/marketing-personas-beginners-guide.

Nielsen, L. 2014. Personas. In M. Soegards & R. F. Dam, eds., The Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction. Aarhus, Denmark: The Interaction Design Foundation. www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/personas.html.

St.Amant, K., & R. Rice. 2015. Online Writing in Global Contexts: Rethinking the Nature of Connections and Communication in the Age of International Online Media. Computers and Composition 38.B: V–X. www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/87554615/38/supp/PB.

World Bank. 2016. Mobile Cellular Subscriptions (per 100 people). http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.CEL.SETS.P2.

GUSTAV VERHULSDONCK (gverhulsdonck@gmail.com) is a Assistant Professor in Practice at the University of Texas at El Paso. He has worked as a technical writer for IBM, and for clients such as the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies, NASA, and the U.S. Army. His research focuses on human-computer interaction and mobile design, digital networks, and the effects of globalization on design processes.