To design a successful website, you must first understand who will be using your website and what they need to be able to use it successfully. The user is the audience for your website.

Many different types of people will probably use your website, but you can usually segment them into some general groups. Depending on the size and type of business your client is in, they might have only one or two main user groups, or they might have dozens (like Amazon does). For this project, you only need to pick one main user group that you are going to focus on.

<aside> 💡 Note: You will later pick a secondary user group as well, and you may change who your main user group is later. Just pick something to go with for now.

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Consider your client and who their customer typically would be. Then, create a very specific persona to represent that group. For instance, your typical customers might be college students between ages 18 and 25 living in Texas, but the persona you make might be a 20-year-old woman going to Texas Tech and living in an apartment with roommates in Lubbock, Texas. Get specific.

You can choose to put this package together however you want. You can make three different Word documents. You can use UXPressia for all of it. You can use Word for part and some other tool for the rest. You can even draw the user journey on paper and take a picture of it. However you do it is good.

<aside> 💡 NOTE: If you use UXPressia, export your work as PNGs and upload the PNGs in Blackboard. If you send a link to your project, I will not have permissions to see it.

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Assignment Credit Requirements

• [ ] Include context-setting information wherever needed. Make sure it is clear who created the document, the date when the document was created, and what the document or document section is (e.g., user profile/persona, use case, user journey). (Some of these are built in if you use UXPressia or another tool. If you are working in Word, be sure to add this information.)

User Profile:

• [ ] The age range, income level, and geographic location of your persona (you can include more information like gender identification, buying preferences, social media or websites frequented, hobbies, or occupation)
• [ ] A name for your specific persona (e.g., Elizabeth, Ravi, John, Taylor)
• [ ] At least three additional pieces of information about your persona that will help you build your site (e.g., other websites frequently visited, daily schedule, family obligations/kids, hobbies, illnesses or conditions that are relevant, type of car driven)
• [ ] A photo representing your persona (find this online in stock photos or something)

Use Case:

• [ ] Describe a reason why your persona would come to your website. Are they linked to it in an email? Do they have a need for a product and Google you? What is their need, and how do they get there?
• [ ] Describe where your persona is when they visit your website (e.g., home, work, park, plane)
• [ ] Name the type of device they use to get to your website (e.g., phone, laptop, desktop, tablet)
• [ ] Describe what your persona is doing when they visit your website (e.g., are they at work, going to work, in the car, at home, hanging out with friends, shopping)
• [ ] Describe the state of mind of your persona when they visit your website (e.g., are they in a hurry, are they relaxing, are they in the middle of a dozen tasks, is their attention divided or focused, are they angry, are they happy)

User Journey:

• [ ] Draw out a flow for your persona, describing what makes them think of your website or causes them to be driven to your website and then what they will do on the website, either on paper or in a tool like UXPressia
• [ ] Include at least one step before they get to your website (e.g., are they on the phone, are they on another website, are they talking to their kids)
• [ ] Include at least one webpage they go to before hitting your website (it would be rare that they aren’t somewhere else or don’t at least open the main Google or Firefox page before going to your site - if they don’t do this, it better be obvious why)
• [ ] Include at least two actions you expect them to take on your site (I know you have not built your site yet, but this is your time to imagine which page they will visit first and what other pages you will need to build for them. This is a time for you to think about the pages, buttons, and content you will need to help users do the most important tasks on the site.)
• [ ] End the user journey with your user achieving a goal (this could be buying something, signing up for something, contacting the company, sharing something on social media, getting the information they needed, or something else specific)