Persona Lifecycles & Cohort Personas

After reading about the Personal Lifecycle, the main point that really captured my interest was how the cycle is designed to metaphorically represent the stages of human development. Even though I don’t quite remember the exact elements of each phase, I’m sure that this concept will help me during our group project. I now have a better understanding on how the persona lifecycle goes hand-in-hand with the product development cycle to help structure user-centered thinking, with the ultimate goal of designing a product based on users’ needs and goals. The Cohort Personas helped to expand my interest even further. I had a great time reading about the different personas and even found myself associating them to people that I already know. The persona that I felt I could relate to the most was Megan, described as “fit and stylish students: young, fashion-conscious, career-minded female students who enjoy music, aerobic sports and the latest in high tech.”

After analyzing both the Personal Lifecycle and the Cohort Personas, I concluded that the best way for a marketer to create an accurate and rich persona of me would be to gather research about the school that I attend, my current job, and interest and lifestyle information on Facebook and Twitter. By simply finding out that I am an Accounting major at the McCombs School of Business and that I have an internship with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, he/she could easily create an “assumption persona” of me. Just by knowing these two facts the very least a marketer would be able to assume is that I am an ambitious and detail-oriented student that places an importance on practicality and job security in her career choice. In order to create a more accurate persona he/she would have to do extensive research on Facebook and Twitter in order to gather data about my interests, extracurricular activities, and overall lifestyle.

The persona I created for myself is based on things that a market researcher could easily find on Facebook and Twitter. I’ve provided descriptions that would be very helpful to marketers in identifying key insights in order to provide an optimal user experience for my persona.

Well-Rounded Female Student on a budget: Valerie

Young student and aspiring fashionista who leads an active social life, is interested in music, health & fitness, self-improvement and becoming cultured.

Demographics

Median: age 22, Median income: $10,000, single with no children, working towards first degree

Personality

Work hard, play hard is my motto.

Sorry but I actually have dinner plans tonight. How about next week?

Thanks! I got them on sale at Macy’s.

I run the Townlake trail every morning to start my day.

Great, I forgot my MacBook battery and my iPod at home. How am I going to survive?!

I can’t wait for Thanksgiving break. I’m going on vacation to Mexico City with my family.

Would you like to go to the Blanton museum after photography class? I hear they have a new exhibit.

Lifestyles

Audio/Video: Macbook, iPod, Photography, Not much time for TV

Sports/fitness: Jogging, Calisthenics, Health-conscious

Interests: Cultural/Fine Arts, Travel, Philosophy, Fashion Trends, Self-improvement, Career-oriented activities, Social issues

Extracurricular: Part-time job, Busy social agenda, Watches sports, Family-oriented

Overall I really enjoyed this exercise. I learned so much about myself by simply creating a persona and I’m especially looking forward to developing my “character.” J