Processing the results of the pre-project study
I finished the last article about the method of independent research before designing the site by listing what needs to be done when processing the results:
Just in case, I will say that in this article you will not find tips on the direct analysis of quantitative and qualitative data. Hundreds of books have been written on this topic, some of which we cite in the list of recommended references at the end of the article. I will tell you how to structure and interpret the data already obtained, how to turn them into useful information for website design.
Everything is pretty simple here. We must answer the questions posed in the paragraph in the “What we need to know about the environment” research plan. Let me remind you that, as a rule, we should learn the following about the environment:
And here the most interesting begins. First, we must answer the questions posed in the paragraph of the research plan “What we need to know about Central Asia”:
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A character is a realistic collective image of a site user , representing one segment of the site’s target audience. Characters differ in behavior patterns, goals, objectives, needs, and values.
Why create characters? Because in this way we increase the efficiency of design and workflow in principle. Describing the capabilities of the site, we proceed from the needs of the characters. Creating an interface, we imagine a character who will use it. By drawing pictures, we ask ourselves the question whether our characters will like it, how they will perceive them. And so on.
We use characters as a design tool, because we believe that it is best to design for real people with real needs, and not for something abstract, not tangible, not perceived as a person. It is much easier to put yourself in the place of a real person with real needs, to feel him.
Moreover, designing for a wide audience is an attempt to satisfy the needs of all, without prioritization , without targeting specific users. The needs of different groups can come into conflict with each other, and the result will be a monstrous product that is not needed by any of the target groups, and the choice must be made in favor of the most necessary users. Pareto principle has not been canceled.
There are quite interesting examples of designing for a particular character, the results of which later became mass products. For example, a trolley case on wheels was designed for flight attendants, and stickers - as a bookmark for a book.
Finally, the characters help create a unified vision in the project team. In any disputes about design or functionality there is an arbiter - a character. Thanks to this, instead of arguing themselves hoarsely about who likes what, a tool appears to choose the right solution: “our Ivan Petrov would never do that because of this and that”.
However, not everyone agrees with us. Not to mention that the practice of using characters has been criticized since its inception in the late 90s. In a rather condensed form with criticism can be found in the article by Chapman and Milham "The Personas' New Clothes" . In short, the main arguments of the opponents are:
The character description contains several semantic blocks (they will be discussed later). Characteristics of the character, except for the portrait, must be synthesized : this means that they must combine in themselves all the significant characteristics of the representative of the Central Asian group, with the addition of specific features to give the character a reality. Thus, we increase the design efficiency, its depth and accuracy of hitting.
The most important thing that character creation begins with is an awareness of the differences between different segments of the audience. It is important to concentrate on the most important differences, which usually should be from two to four. For example, they may concern:
A portrait is a general description of a character regardless of the site: photo, name, age, gender, profession, personal characteristics that may affect the interaction with the site, views and interests in the field of interest to us.
We turn to the interaction of the character with the site and determine to start his goal - why he needs a website. We divide the goals into the following types:
Here we need to tell how the character will interact with the site:
After describing the characters, you must check them for completeness / redundancy of the description. We could forget something - for example, an important goal or an evaluation factor - or, on the contrary, write something superfluous. Remember: fewer extra details that are not directly related to the site and interact with it.
After creating an extended list of characters, we must distinguish two types with which we will work:
As a rule, there are no more than two key characters. The exceptions are complex projects with multiple roles - complex web services, business systems, etc. The meaning of the selection of key characters - in the arrangement of the Prioritites, in the selection of those who will bring the greatest benefit, and the orientation of the project to them. Designing for a larger amount is basically harmful: it means designing for anyone and, as a result, we lose all the target groups that are key, which are secondary.
The scenario of behavior is a situation of interaction of the character with the site . The script describes the character's actions, the goals he wants to achieve, and the expectations from the actions he performs.
Scenarios help us simulate the shortest and most effective way for a character to achieve his goals on the site and, also important, provide the user with contextual information on his way to follow the script.
The main use of scenarios is that they help to avoid designing for exceptional situations , which is what programmers suffer for, for example, for whom exceptional situations are the sweetest.
The scenario is based on the goal / need of the user and therefore does not allow it to deviate from the design. For example, if we have the main scenario on the site of boutique XXX - “to study the catalog of clothes and decide whether to go to the showroom or not”, then we should obviously give him a link from anywhere on the site, make it as easy as possible to view it, and then tell what to do after viewing the catalog - go to the showroom or order clothes from the site. This means that all unnecessary information “just in case, suddenly it will be interesting”, accentual contextual blocks, news, etc. must either be absent in the process of viewing, or present at least very unnoticed.
Thus, the script forces to solve a specific task , rather than to design the navigation and functionality, starting from typical CMS capabilities, the practice of creating similar websites, examples seen, personal presentations and the like.
This is written in sufficient detail in the special literature, for example, in Alan Cooper (see the list of sources at the end of the article), so I will give three, in my opinion, basic advice:
We divide the scenarios into the following types:
Naturally, special attention should be paid to contextual (if any) and typical scenarios. They form the basis of user and site interaction.
Mandatory, but not typical, scenarios are also important, but they, as a rule, are rarely implemented. For example, Facebook authorization: most users, as a rule, do it once, remember the password and repeat it very rarely - on someone else’s computer or when their browser clears up cookies.
There are only working scenarios in the research results for the XXX boutique - the site is rather simple - therefore, I recommend you to look at examples of contextual and other rare scenarios in Alan Cooper's excellent book “On the Interface”.
Finally, it is time to turn the research results into a site concept.
Here we describe what the site will be, that is, answer the questions:
Research of competitors and Central Asia gives us enough information to draw conclusions: what are the sites of competitors are good and what are bad; how and what can be done to make our site stand out from them.
In this section we write it literally point by point: we do it in such a way as to be better or simply to differ from competitors. Basically, sites differ from each other in design, functionality, content (composition, style of speech, manner of submission of key messages, and so on).
Based on the main scenarios, we determine what functionality will be enough to launch the site, firstly, to solve the main tasks of users, without which they will not need the site, and, secondly, to solve the main tasks of the business / client, without which the launch does not make sense.
This is not always necessary if, for example, the site is small and starts up in one stage. But even on small sites it happens that the information needs to be submitted gradually, to check some functions or sections. I advise you to think about it in any case.
After that we determine the possible (!) Directions for the development of the site, which, if necessary, we divide into stages. We make this forecast together with the client, proceeding from his understanding of the business development strategy, proceeding from the content strategy, the market situation.
For example, in boutique XXX at the first stage it will be possible to look at the clothes and ask them to postpone them for one day. And later, when we are organizationally ready for this, the clothes can be ordered with delivery within Russia.
This question is also important to answer. This limits the imagination of the client, the project manager and the developer, which often leads to senseless development for the sake of development and the addition of unnecessary functions. Often this is simply useless, but it can also be extremely harmful because it violates the concept, blurs the brand, etc.
For example, on the site of boutique absolutely definitely there will not be a forum, a blog, and the like for chatter, which does not solve a single task here.
We advise you to read:
- Give a general description of the environment ;
- Describe the target audience , create characters and scenarios of their behavior on the site;
- Write the concept of the site : how it will be, how it will differ from competitors and how it will develop.
Just in case, I will say that in this article you will not find tips on the direct analysis of quantitative and qualitative data. Hundreds of books have been written on this topic, some of which we cite in the list of recommended references at the end of the article. I will tell you how to structure and interpret the data already obtained, how to turn them into useful information for website design.
General characteristics of the environment
Everything is pretty simple here. We must answer the questions posed in the paragraph in the “What we need to know about the environment” research plan. Let me remind you that, as a rule, we should learn the following about the environment:
- The main characteristics that may affect the site: legal restrictions, rules and behavioral stereotypes, features of the sale of the product, etc.
- How competitors work (to tune them off).
- How the environment is developing (do we need to take this into account when designing the site).
The target audience
And here the most interesting begins. First, we must answer the questions posed in the paragraph of the research plan “What we need to know about Central Asia”:
- Does Central Asia need such a site and, if so, why?
- How it will guide the evaluation of the site: why the site is like and why not, how to evaluate similar sites (if you have experience of interaction).
- What tasks and how will be solved on this site.
- What are the main scenarios for using the site.
- What are the expectations from the results of the interaction, behavior and content of the site.
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Create characters
A character is a realistic collective image of a site user , representing one segment of the site’s target audience. Characters differ in behavior patterns, goals, objectives, needs, and values.
About the benefits of creating characters
Why create characters? Because in this way we increase the efficiency of design and workflow in principle. Describing the capabilities of the site, we proceed from the needs of the characters. Creating an interface, we imagine a character who will use it. By drawing pictures, we ask ourselves the question whether our characters will like it, how they will perceive them. And so on.
We use characters as a design tool, because we believe that it is best to design for real people with real needs, and not for something abstract, not tangible, not perceived as a person. It is much easier to put yourself in the place of a real person with real needs, to feel him.
Moreover, designing for a wide audience is an attempt to satisfy the needs of all, without prioritization , without targeting specific users. The needs of different groups can come into conflict with each other, and the result will be a monstrous product that is not needed by any of the target groups, and the choice must be made in favor of the most necessary users. Pareto principle has not been canceled.
There are quite interesting examples of designing for a particular character, the results of which later became mass products. For example, a trolley case on wheels was designed for flight attendants, and stickers - as a bookmark for a book.
Finally, the characters help create a unified vision in the project team. In any disputes about design or functionality there is an arbiter - a character. Thanks to this, instead of arguing themselves hoarsely about who likes what, a tool appears to choose the right solution: “our Ivan Petrov would never do that because of this and that”.
Criticism of characters
However, not everyone agrees with us. Not to mention that the practice of using characters has been criticized since its inception in the late 90s. In a rather condensed form with criticism can be found in the article by Chapman and Milham "The Personas' New Clothes" . In short, the main arguments of the opponents are:
- The results of the character creation process are not reproducible. Two teams on the same data will create different sets of characters, and it is impossible to prove which of them is “correct”.
- It is impossible to estimate how accurately the character set describes the target audience. What part of CA describes a particular character and how important is it for the project? How many potential users were not described by any of the characters?
- “Curse of dimension”: the more specific the character description is (the greater the number of differentiable characteristics), the smaller the share of CA describes such a character (five boolean characteristics will give 1/32, that is, 3% of the audience).
Character creation technique
The character description contains several semantic blocks (they will be discussed later). Characteristics of the character, except for the portrait, must be synthesized : this means that they must combine in themselves all the significant characteristics of the representative of the Central Asian group, with the addition of specific features to give the character a reality. Thus, we increase the design efficiency, its depth and accuracy of hitting.
Highlight key differences
The most important thing that character creation begins with is an awareness of the differences between different segments of the audience. It is important to concentrate on the most important differences, which usually should be from two to four. For example, they may concern:
- User goals
- Period of use of the site (will go once, get the result and leave, or will be a regular visitor),
- Awareness (knowledge of the subject area, brand perception, key motivators),
- Behavioral patterns (ways to implement their needs outside the site, the frequency of needs realization, ...).
Character portrait
A portrait is a general description of a character regardless of the site: photo, name, age, gender, profession, personal characteristics that may affect the interaction with the site, views and interests in the field of interest to us.
Character goals
We turn to the interaction of the character with the site and determine to start his goal - why he needs a website. We divide the goals into the following types:
- Non-site goals are goals that a character can achieve without a site.
- Goals related to the site:
- Personal are the goals that the person fully shares and has the motivation to achieve them.
- Imposed - these are goals that a person dictates to something from the outside - for example, his company, people in his environment, or legislation, which he may not share. In this case, you need to talk not about motivation, but about external stimulus.
Interaction with the site
Here we need to tell how the character will interact with the site:
- In what circumstances will the site be used;
- Was there any experience using such sites;
- What are the site evaluation factors;
- What are the expectations from the behavior and content of the site;
- What are the expected results from the interaction.
Check and determine the types of characters
After describing the characters, you must check them for completeness / redundancy of the description. We could forget something - for example, an important goal or an evaluation factor - or, on the contrary, write something superfluous. Remember: fewer extra details that are not directly related to the site and interact with it.
After creating an extended list of characters, we must distinguish two types with which we will work:
- The key character - for him, we will design the site.
- A minor character - we take into account his needs, but their implementation should not prevent key characters from realizing their own.
As a rule, there are no more than two key characters. The exceptions are complex projects with multiple roles - complex web services, business systems, etc. The meaning of the selection of key characters - in the arrangement of the Prioritites, in the selection of those who will bring the greatest benefit, and the orientation of the project to them. Designing for a larger amount is basically harmful: it means designing for anyone and, as a result, we lose all the target groups that are key, which are secondary.
Create scenarios for the behavior of characters
The scenario of behavior is a situation of interaction of the character with the site . The script describes the character's actions, the goals he wants to achieve, and the expectations from the actions he performs.
About the benefits of scripts
Scenarios help us simulate the shortest and most effective way for a character to achieve his goals on the site and, also important, provide the user with contextual information on his way to follow the script.
The main use of scenarios is that they help to avoid designing for exceptional situations , which is what programmers suffer for, for example, for whom exceptional situations are the sweetest.
The scenario is based on the goal / need of the user and therefore does not allow it to deviate from the design. For example, if we have the main scenario on the site of boutique XXX - “to study the catalog of clothes and decide whether to go to the showroom or not”, then we should obviously give him a link from anywhere on the site, make it as easy as possible to view it, and then tell what to do after viewing the catalog - go to the showroom or order clothes from the site. This means that all unnecessary information “just in case, suddenly it will be interesting”, accentual contextual blocks, news, etc. must either be absent in the process of viewing, or present at least very unnoticed.
Thus, the script forces to solve a specific task , rather than to design the navigation and functionality, starting from typical CMS capabilities, the practice of creating similar websites, examples seen, personal presentations and the like.
How to write scripts
This is written in sufficient detail in the special literature, for example, in Alan Cooper (see the list of sources at the end of the article), so I will give three, in my opinion, basic advice:
- The effectiveness of a scenario is determined by its scope , not its depth. Depth should be determined by you when modeling the character's behavior.
- The script must be described in full : from the beginning to the logical conclusion.
- The script should be as plausible as possible, less fantasy.
Types of scenarios
We divide the scenarios into the following types:
- Contextual . They describe the context of use of the site by the user. As a rule, this description is for a considerable period of time - for example, within one working day. Such scenarios are usually created for software or for a site that serves as a working tool.
- Workers . Such scenarios detail the use of the site and describe specific operations. Work scripts in turn are divided into three types:
- Typical - the most frequent. Such scenarios should be in the design in the most prominent place. These scenarios are rarely more than three.
- Exceptional - rarely implemented. For such scenarios, interaction can be designed roughly, without much attention to detail.
- Mandatory - without them it is impossible to solve some problems of the site.
Naturally, special attention should be paid to contextual (if any) and typical scenarios. They form the basis of user and site interaction.
Mandatory, but not typical, scenarios are also important, but they, as a rule, are rarely implemented. For example, Facebook authorization: most users, as a rule, do it once, remember the password and repeat it very rarely - on someone else’s computer or when their browser clears up cookies.
There are only working scenarios in the research results for the XXX boutique - the site is rather simple - therefore, I recommend you to look at examples of contextual and other rare scenarios in Alan Cooper's excellent book “On the Interface”.
Site concept
Finally, it is time to turn the research results into a site concept.
What will the site be
Here we describe what the site will be, that is, answer the questions:
- Who are we doing the site for?
- How will the site be positioned?
- What will the site be: what opportunities will it provide, what information to contain, what emotions and messages to carry?
How the site will differ from competitors
Research of competitors and Central Asia gives us enough information to draw conclusions: what are the sites of competitors are good and what are bad; how and what can be done to make our site stand out from them.
In this section we write it literally point by point: we do it in such a way as to be better or simply to differ from competitors. Basically, sites differ from each other in design, functionality, content (composition, style of speech, manner of submission of key messages, and so on).
Determining the stages of site development
What is necessary and sufficient to run
Based on the main scenarios, we determine what functionality will be enough to launch the site, firstly, to solve the main tasks of users, without which they will not need the site, and, secondly, to solve the main tasks of the business / client, without which the launch does not make sense.
This is not always necessary if, for example, the site is small and starts up in one stage. But even on small sites it happens that the information needs to be submitted gradually, to check some functions or sections. I advise you to think about it in any case.
Where we will develop
After that we determine the possible (!) Directions for the development of the site, which, if necessary, we divide into stages. We make this forecast together with the client, proceeding from his understanding of the business development strategy, proceeding from the content strategy, the market situation.
For example, in boutique XXX at the first stage it will be possible to look at the clothes and ask them to postpone them for one day. And later, when we are organizationally ready for this, the clothes can be ordered with delivery within Russia.
Where development will not be exactly
This question is also important to answer. This limits the imagination of the client, the project manager and the developer, which often leads to senseless development for the sake of development and the addition of unnecessary functions. Often this is simply useless, but it can also be extremely harmful because it violates the concept, blurs the brand, etc.
For example, on the site of boutique absolutely definitely there will not be a forum, a blog, and the like for chatter, which does not solve a single task here.
Sources
We advise you to read:
- "About the interface" by Alan Cooper and his website http://www.cooper.com/
- Steve Mulder, "The User Is Always Right",
- Chapman, CN & Milham, R. The personas' new clothes ,
- Long, F (2009) 'Real or Imaginary; The performance of the Irish Ergonomics Society Annual Conference, May 2009, pp1-10 Dublin,
- Robin J. Byrne, “Effective use of marketing research. How to make and put into practice the most optimal decisions ",
- M. L. Vlasova, "Sociological methods in marketing research",
- Seymour Sadman, Norman Bradburn, Norbert Schwartz, “How do people answer questions. The use of cognitive analysis in mass surveys.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/119207/
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