User research and personas
User research establishes who your users are and what they need, and puts that knowledge to work across the project.
Background
Many projects start from guesses about the audience. User research replaces them with evidence, so the budget goes into features people need. A short round before the project starts answers the key questions.
Methods
User interviews: one-to-one conversations about tasks, goals and frustrations.
Data analysis: web analytics, search terms and support requests.
Stakeholder interviews: sales and customer service know the most common questions.
Surveys: test interview findings with a larger group.
Personas and customer journeys
Each persona sums up a typical user group with its goals, tasks and objections. It rests on data, with no room for invented details such as hobbies. Customer journeys show where the website needs to support people along the key user paths.
Approach
Agree which decisions the research needs to support.
Choose suitable methods and recruit participants.
Run interviews and analysis and evaluate them systematically.
Present the personas and customer journeys to your team in a workshop.
Outcome
Design, content and development work from a shared view of your users. All data is processed in line with the GDPR and shared only in anonymised form.