WRA 415 Group 1
Personas for the Our
Michigan Ave Website
User Archetypes for Gauging Usability and Inspiring
Improvement
Andrea Alburtus
Ian Boyle
Christine Haynes
Franny Howes
Laura Logan
Michael Wojcik
3 November 2009
Personas for the Our Michigan
Ave Website
User Archetypes for Gauging Usability and Inspiring Improvement
Personas are descriptions of imaginary, archetypal users for a product or service —in
this case, for the Our Michigan Ave website (OMA). Personas assist in user research by
representing user research in a memorable, narrative form; providing developers with
touchstones to gauge usability for various types of users, and a vocabulary (the
persona names) for referring to user types; and helping designers invent new features
and other improvements by thinking of users with different needs.
In this report we present several personas designed specifically for OMA, based on
research into plausible users, and the process we used to de velop them. First we
discuss our research methodology and results, and how they informed our personas.
The personas themselves are provided as traditional “personal sheets” —convenient
single-page summaries for easy reference—and extended descriptions, which also
include additional information to help explain each persona as both a community
member and a website user. To demonstrate the personas in practice, we also present
some possible comments about the site that we imagine our personas might offer, if
they were real users. That’s followed by other research observations that aren’t readily
apparent in the individual personas, such as group trends. Finally, our research data
and other sources are included as appendices.
Introduction ........................................................................................ 4
Research Methodology ....................................................................... 7
Brainstorming ..................................................................................... 7
Interviewing ....................................................................................... 7
Gathering Data from Other Sources ..................................................... 8
Reports ......................................................................................................................... 8
OMA Profiles ................................................................................................................ 10
Informal Discussions .................................................................................................... 10
Research Results ............................................................................... 12
Overview of Personas ....................................................................... 14
Quadrants ........................................................................................ 14
Digital Literacies ............................................................................... 15
Personas ............................................................................................ 17
Katie ................................................................................................ 18
James .............................................................................................. 21
Rosemary ......................................................................................... 24
Colleen & Carlos ............................................................................... 27
Personas in Practice.......................................................................... 31
Persona Suggestion: Profiles Tab ....................................................... 31
Vignettes .......................................................................................... 32
Cross-Persona Design ........................................................................ 33
Other Observations ........................................................................... 34
Word Clouds ..................................................................................... 34
Who are the Interview Subjects, and what is their Living Situation? ................................ 34
How do Subjects Spend their Time? .............................................................................. 35
How do subjects feel about the Corridor? ...................................................................... 35
Persona Map ..................................................................................... 36
Conclusions........................................................................................ 38
2
Appendix A: Original Data ................................................................ 39
Interview: Samantha A and Ed P ........................................................ 39
Interview: Rebecca W. ...................................................................... 43
Appendix B: Other Sources............................................................... 47
Appendix C: Analyses........................................................................ 48
Interview Data .................................................................................. 48
Keyword Analysis of Interview Data .............................................................................. 48
OMA Profiles ..................................................................................... 55
3
Introduction
The World Wide Web is undoubtedly the greatest vanity press in history. Even in its
infancy, academic papers were quickly joined by personal home pages with pictures of
cats (amusing captions would come later) and lists of favorite books. 1 Statistics are
hard to come by, but it’s likely that a majority of web pages are rarely read by anyone
other than their creator and various web spiders, indexing content that no one is likely
to view.
But such exercises in self-expression aside, web pages typically seek to serve a
community of users. Some sites, for example in a corporate intranet, enjoy a captive
audience. Others appeal to users’ everyday needs and desires. Amazon offers
convenient shopping for a wide range of goods. eBay promises low prices and obscure
merchandise. News sites seek to provide on -demand, timely information. The enormous
range of entertainment sites attract viewers simply by offering leisure and distraction.
Websites that demand more of users, and seek to satisfy more complex needs, operate
at an inherent disadvantage in what Richard Lanham has called the “economy of
attention”. 2 Because they do not gratify immediate desires, they ask users to invest in
them for a deferred return. Even when such sites are nominally “free”, they require the
user’s time and energy—what Bruce Sterling refers to as “opportunity costs” (the user
could be doing something else) and “cognitive load” (the user has to think about the
site’s purpose and how to use it). 3 In designing and developing such sites, the stakes
are even higher than for popular shopping, news, or entertainment websites. The rapid
satisfaction offered by cheap shopping, say, will make many users forgive an awkward
implementation.
OurMichiganAve.org (OMA) is one of these more-complex websites. Intended as a locus
and forum for democratic participation in efforts to improve a neighborhood —the
Michigan Avenue Corridor—in the Greater Lansing area, it necessarily speaks to a
specific, limited audience and offers mostly uncertain, long-term rewards for
participation, given the complexities and lengthy timescales of urban improvement
efforts. While many potential users are concerned about neighborhood issues, those
concerns are often abstract and can be postponed almost indefinitely. On the other
hand, potential users who are deeply involved with the community and feel such
concerns more immediately already have multiple demands on their time and resources
for community efforts. In either case, a si te like OMA not only has to convince users
that the site will ultimately be valuable for them; it also has to minimize its costs for
users, by being clear, easy, and attractive, and by appealing to their preferences for
website interaction. These goals are different for different kinds of users.
In our research (detailed below), we did not encounter any current users of the OMA
site, which has now been public for about half a year. And while our interviewees were
enthusiastic about the idea of a website for the Michigan Avenue Corridor development
project, they were uncertain about how they would use it or what it could do for them.
Clearly there’s a disjunction between how the site exists today and what its potential
users need, or think they need, in that space.
1
2
3
One of us admits he had such a page as far back as 1993.
Richard Lanham, The Economics of Attention: Style and Substance in the Age of Information (Chicago:
U of Chicago P, 2006).
Bruce Sterling, Shaping Things (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT P, 2005) 20.
4
Website designers and developers naturally tend to create websites for users like
themselves, with similar needs, goals, desires, preferences, and areas of proficiency.
It’s difficult for developers to keep all the categories of their potential user s in mind,
particularly when those users are abstractions. Various design techniques such as user
stories can help, but it’s obviously infeasible to have input from a wide range of users
available for every design and implementation decision.
Personas are one tool for addressing that need. Personas are fictional users who
represent prominent (by size and/or significance) groups of real potential users. As
Jesse James Garrett notes, aggregated data from user research can be difficult for
designers to apply: “Collecting all sorts of data
about your users can be incredibly valuable, but
sometimes you can lose sight of the real people
behind all the statistics”. 4 With personas, our
socialized skills for remembering individuals are
employed to maintain that connection between
“the real people” and the user trends revealed
by analysis of user research data.
Each persona represents a significant, coherent
set of user characteristics. Personas are
delivered in small packages (the main
information is kept to a single page for easy
reference), with graphics for quick visual cues,
and ample social data—portrait pictures, names,
quotations—to make a persona come alive for
developers. Personas are memorable and easy to
refer to in group discussions or when working on
individual tasks. They’re specific enough to use
in generating requirements, but broad enough to
apply to features developed in the future.
Our personas were developed specifically for
OurMichiganAve.org. They represent potential
users of that site—stakeholders in the Corridor
who could have something valuable to contribute
to the project. Though we present only a
handful of the many possible personas that
might be derived from our data, they’re
significant archetypes who correspond to a
diverse set of important user categories.
Certainly additional useful personas could be
derived using our data and methods, but we feel
the ones we present here offer useful insights
for the next stage in OMA development. 5
4
5
Some examples of corporate personas
Jesse James Garrett, The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web (New York:
AIGA; Berkeley, Calif.: New Riders-Peachpit-Pearson, 2003) 54.
Corporate personas shown here for illustration are from Chad R. Maxwell and Bari Wieselman Schulman,
Razorfish, “Personified Segmentation: Fusing Qualitative and Quantitative Evidence” (EPIC 2009), 8,
52; Whitney Quesenbery, Whitney Interactive Design, “Putting Personas to Work: Improving Your
Scenarios, Reviews and Usability Testing with Personas” (STC Rocky Mountain, 2006) 4.
5
The remainder of this report discusses our methodology for gathering data and creating
the personas; observations from our analysis; the personas themselves; and some
examples for using them. (These examples are meant as illustrations of applying the
personas, not necessarily as concrete suggestions for changi ng the site, which should
be developed using personas in conjunction with other forms of user research and
discussion among the site’s designers and developers.) Then we present a few
concluding remarks. Finally, several appendices with more detail about o ur data are
attached.
6
Research Methodology
Brainstorming
For our group, brainstorming was critical to every part of this project —from the
beginning when we brainstormed about the persona readings and how we could apply
them, to the very end when we brainst ormed how the data should be presented. It
seemed that every time we met either in class or outside of class we would brainstorm
ideas and then tackle those ideas. We used each other as resources and gave input on
every part of the project before we starte d working on it.
Persona development is a creative, fairly subjective mode of user research.
Brainstorming was important not only as an invention strategy, but also to ensure that
none of the individual group members became “locked in” to preconceived noti ons
about the research process or the personas. The flexible nature of persona construction
means that the data-gathering process does not impose strong constraints on the
output (as it might do in, for example, usability testing, where there are concrete
quantitative metrics). Thus creative brainstorming sessions were completely crucial in
mediating the natural tendency for group members to start with preconceived personas
and work back to fit them into the data.
Interviewing
To form our interview questions we first needed to figure out what sort of information
we were looking to gather. We started by brainstorming what information we needed
and what categories we wanted to make for our personas. Initially we felt that we
wanted to categorize personas by di gital literacy and political engagement, and to
include a cross-section of Corridor stakeholders by common concerns —similar to the
concept of “user communities” suggested by James Agre. Using the “axes” model
suggested by Franny, we refined our primary ana lysis factors to digital literacy paired
with sincerity toward social networking, and by local knowledge with overall outlook
(optimistic or pessimistic).
From there we made a long list of interview questions that we though might be needed
to gather this data. After our progress presentation and class activity, which we used to
get feedback on our questions, we narrowed the questions down.
Once we had these questions narrowed down by using our classmates’ input we refined
our questions further, in a virtual group discussion using Google Docs to gather our
individual opinions on what we needed and did not need. We knew that the more freely
our interviewee was able to talk the richer our data would be. We formulated “intro”
questions to get the conversation started, followed by more in-depth questions to use if
the conversation was not flowing in a useful direction. Basically, we would ask the
questions and let the interviewee talk. If they started to run out of things to say we
would slip in another question to keep them going.
We ultimately arrived at the following set of questions:

Can you tell me a little about yourself?
o
What do you do for a living?
o
Where do you live? How long have you been there? Do you plan on
staying there for a while?
o
If you don't mind me asking, how old are you?
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What do you do for fun? Do you have any hobbies? Who do you do
those things with? How do you know those people?
How interested would you say you are in what happens in your area? [to get at
civic engagement]
o
How interested are you in local politics?
o
Do you usually vote in local elections? [if yes, ask about other kinds of
participation – e.g. attending city council meetings]
What do you think of the living conditions in your neighborhood?
o
In things like local businesses, real-estate development, employment?
o
In local events, shopping, or other things to do in the area?
When you are looking for local information, where do you go?
o
Do you read any of the local papers?
o
Do you get local information online?
o
Where do you get your national news?
Are you interested in meeting new people in the area?
o
Where do you go for that?
When I say "The Michigan Avenue Corridor", what comes to mind, if anything?
o
Do you spend time in the corridor area? What do you do there?
o
How do you feel about the state of the corridor?
o
Is the corridor a good space for you [and your family, if appropriate]?
o
How do you feel about its future? [Optimistic, pessimistic, something
else?]
o
Would you like to be able to participate in improving the Michigan
Avenue Corridor?
o
Are you familiar with the Michigan Avenue Corridor Initiative?
How often do you use the web?
o
Do you consider yourself a novice, competent, or expert web user?
o
What kinds of things do you do on the web?
o
How do you access the internet? [Home computer, work, cell phone,
public computer, school, anything else?]
o
Have you ever used Facebook, Myspace or another site where you
created a personal profile?

If yes - how do you feel about it?

If no - what do you think of those kind of sites?
o






We eventually interviewed a total of 15 people, which we felt was a reasonable
achievement considering the time constraints. Interviews typically took about 45
minutes each.
Some interviews were recorded; others were transcribed by hand during the interview.
The recorded interviews wer e subsequently transcribed for analysis.
Gathering Data from Other Sources
Early on, we decided that we would augment our data collection with information from
other sources that provided insights we couldn’t get from any plausible set of
interviews.
Reports
Quantitative data provides direction in persona development. As Maxwell and Schulman
explain, regarding qualitative approaches such as ethnography: “[A] lack of statistical
reliability can lead to segments that don’t drive business results. This method can
8
create the perception that these segments aren’t `real’” (7). Integrating quantitative
data in the persona development process —what they call quantitative segmentation —
can “ensure that these groups exist in large numbers in the marketplace and that
planning around them is more likely to lead to measureable business results” (9).
Quantitative data alone cannot produce well -rounded, believable personas that
accurately reflect “soft” attributes of potential users such as attitudes and beliefs, but
it can steer persona development in the most useful directions for the intended
audience.
The 2004 Report on the State of the Avenue developed by the Community Research and
Education Center out of Kalamazoo, and Transforming the Michigan Avenue Corridor: A
Complete Streets and Transit-Oriented Development Study from a Michigan State
University Student Research Team (see Appendix B for more information) contain an
abundance of quantitative data on the residents of the corridor, as well as information
on transportation issues and businesses.
Residents of the Avenue corridor have a median age of 31, an average household
income of $40,000, which is slightly lower than the national average, and slightly more
than half the residents are in white collar jobs. Almost a quar ter of residents have a
bachelor's or master's degree. As far as the people who shop, eat, and generally spend
their money in the corridor, only 10% come from the neighborhood, and over two
thirds travel from more than 15 minutes away to shop the corridor.
Businesses on the corridor truly are small businesses —of the 75% who do have
employees besides the owner, half of those only have part time help and those with full
time employees typically have 2 or 3.
This data can help determine who some of the importa nt stakeholders and users of
Avenue resources are and who should be targeted for interviews. The data tells us that
the median age of the Avenue's residents is a few years younger than that of Michigan.
This means that there are young families and students in the corridor's immediate area
who should be interviewed. Employment data for almost a quarter of the residents in
2004 wasn't reported. This could indicate that students live in the area and it could
indicate unemployed residents. Unemployed residents are of particular concern as they
could easily be underrepresented unless they are actively sought out; even if actively
sought out, they may be unwilling to participate in interviews. Since customers are
largely from outside of the immediate area of the c orridor, there should also be an
effort to interview some people who work in or use the corridor but do not live there.
Finally, the importance of small businesses in the corridor cannot be underestimated as
they constitute the bulk of the commercial space —small business owners are both
invested and interested in not only the success of their businesses, but also the success
of the corridor.
Comments from business owners along the corridor who were interviewed are
characterized by this quote from the Report on the State of the Avenue:
"Over 85% felt being on the Avenue had met their expectations, though there were
wistful comments that lack of `companionship or fellowship’ among business owners
meant Michigan was not the premier location it had been when t hey made their choice
to locate here."
9
OMA Profiles
There are also the existing profiles on OurMichiganAve.org which provide information
on stakeholders who are already interested in and aware of the project. While many of
the profiles are of students who may have created them as part of their coursework,
there are some profiles of Eastside residents, a pastor at a local church, and business
owners. As there has been little advertising and publicity for the OMA site thus far, this
indicates that some stakeholders are perhaps seeking out online spaces in which to
participate in the development and planning process.
We collected as many profiles as we could from the OMA site, by following the
contributor links from individual improvement ideas, stories, and ot her postings back to
the profiles. Data from the profiles, plus information such as number of items of each
type contributed to the site, was entered into a spreadsheet for retrieval and analysis.
A couple of interesting observations from this data: first, few people add optional
information (such as autobiographical notes) to their profiles. Making the profiles more
visible might encourage this, which in turn could lead to a greater sense of community
on the site. Second, most non-student contributors joined in order to add points—
typically their own businesses—to the points-of-interest map. Clearly business owners
saw the site initially as a form of free advertising.
Informal Discussions
Besides in-group discussion and brainstorming, formal interviews, and studying existing
reports, we found that many informal discussions contributed considerably to both the
research process and the creation of the actual personas.
Conversations during and outside the WRA415 classroom with the instructor, John
Monberg and the other students were very productive. John’s expertise with the OMA
site and the Corridor area and Initiative were of course directly relevant to matters of
the larger project, but he also provided broader insights about urban revitalization.
The other 415 students helped us most directly during the in -class exercise we
conducted, where we role-played community members and they interviewed us using
our draft questions; the feedback from that led to significant changes in our question
sheet. There were also any number of ad hoc discussions with other student groups.
Some of these confirmed our findings (validating our research trajectory) and others
supplemented them or provided productive suggestions.
Many of us also had informal conversations with Corrido r stakeholders or other relevant
parties. A particularly useful instance was the Community Networking Event that Franny
organized at the Feminisms and Rhetorics Conference, held at MSU while the project
was in progress. Franny and Michael were able to atte nd that event, and participated in
a roundtable discussion with a number of local people interested in community
activism. This included a mix of graduate and undergraduate students, a handful of
local community-organization members, and a couple of confer ence attendees from
other cities.
At the Community Networking Event, we spoke at length with two prominent community
organizers. Penny Gardner is an MSU faculty member and a long -time Lansing activist,
currently with CARE, LAHR, GLHC, and OSA. She was subs equently formally interviewed
and her data strongly influenced our persona Rosemary. Bernadette Brown is the
Director of Policy for Detroit’s Triangle Foundation; she is also a lawyer and state
lobbyist. She provided a number of comments about concrete leg al and procedural
10
realities for the research process (noting, for example, that city clerks often exceed
their legal authority in trying to restrict door -to-door surveying), tax-financed
neighborhood improvement projects like the Corridor Initiative, and c ommunity activism
in general.
11
Research Results
A total of fifteen ethnographic-style interviews were performed. The interviewees were
selected based on the group’s previously brainstorming sessions and the quantitative
data acquired through the examination of the available reports. Interview questions
were finalized by testing them for clarity and relevance in dry run interviews.
Once the interviews were completed, the responses were analyzed for keywords to
determine trends and develop broad categories of user information that needed to be
represented in the personas. As recommended by Shannon Ford, 6 analysis tools were
selected. The keyword analysis was chosen because it would enable segmentation of
the interview data, easing the development of broad categ ories that would allow for
persona development (Maxwell and Schulman). The graphical representations that
follow here demonstrate some of these broad categories.
Where Interviewees Live
Attitudes About the Corridor
26 %
In The Corridor
34 %
Outside The Corridor
47%
Optimists
Pessimists
Ambivalent
53%
40 %
Employment Data
What Do They Do For Fun?
13%
Social Events
Go to Bars
Drink Beer
20%
Grad Student
Undergrad
Professional
67%
Play Games
Music
Cook
Read
Exercise
Watch Movies
Watch TV
Play Sports
Busy
0%
6
10%
20%
30%
40%
Shannon Ford, Razorfish, Creating Quality Personas: Understanding the Levers That Drive User Behavior
(Avenue A-Razorfish, 2005) 3.
12
50%
How Comfortable Are They Online?
What Do they Do Online?
Forums
Shopping
Wasting Time
33%
Hobbies
Expert
Entertainment
Competent
News
Novice
Music
Email
Social Networking
Research
Homework
7%
60%
0%
20%
40%
60%
These broad categories were then associated with one another to facilitat e the creation
of some basic groups for the personas. The data collected in the interviews also drove
some of the “quantitative” data presented in the final personas, including the quadrant
selection of the archetypical users and the sliding scales for onl ine content generation
and community involvement.
Some of the commonalities across the entire spectrum of interviews included:





No one knew about the Michigan Avenue Corridor Initiative.
With a few exceptions, interviewees were comfortable using the interne t.
Among all those who were interested in participating in planning/community
development projects, time was a major concern.
Almost three-quarters of those interviewed do spend time in the Corridor.
The most frequent comments when asked what they thought about the corridor
were unappealing, run-down, needs improvement, and not cohesive.
13
80%
Overview of Personas
With this report we are delivering four personas. Clearly many more distinct, relevant
user groupings are possible, but these four we feel represent q uality personas for OMA
development, and provide enough of a range to challenge designers and developers as
they review the site and consider refinements.
Our persona sheets are mostly straightforward, with elements such as:

social data: photograph (see Appendix B for sources), name, descriptive title,
pull quote

demographic data: bullet points, biography

metrics: degree of web literacy and other factors relevant to the site
A few of our more innovative features are described below.
We also included, with each persona, an example of that persona’s activities online. We
felt this would give developers a better handle on the persona specifically as a website
user.
Quadrants
As mentioned in the methodology section, after brainstorming a list of possible kinds o f
users, we first hypothesized the existence of personas within two sets of quadrants.
This would theoretically allow for sixteen different possible combinations of users.
The first set of quadrants combine a vertical axis of situated local knowledge (how long
has the person lived in the area, and how much do they know about it) with a
horizontal axis of attitudes toward the future of the corridor, running from pessimistic
to optimistic. This combination gives us four types:

The Engaged Optimist (or Activist): high situated local knowledge, optimistic

The Young Urbanist: lower situated local knowledge, but optimistic (newer to
the area but interested in cities and urban development)

The Curmudgeon: high situated local knowledge, pessimistic

The Bad First Impression: low situated local knowledge, pessimistic
The second set of quadrants combine a vertical axis of Web 2.0 literacy (not necessarily
digital literacy in general, but specifically related to Web 2.0 technologies and
conventions) with a horizontal axis of ironic vs. sincere reactions to content (in order to
gauge how seriously a user would take our website, and whether they are more likely
to respond to ironic viral content vs. the painfully sincere discourses of community
development). This also gives us four types:

The Quadrant of Lulz: high Web 2.0 literacy, ironic reaction (this is the FARK
quadrant)

The Quadrant of Confusion: low Web 2.0 literacy, sincere reaction

The Quadrant of Unironic Enthusiasm: high Web 2.0 literacy, sincere reaction
14

The Quadrant of Skepticism: low Web 2.0 literacy, ironic reaction
As previously mentioned, these could technically combine to produce 16 possible
combinations. In practice, we developed four personas that we rated according to a
loose application of these types within an analysis of our interview data.
The personas we came up with that squarely fit into two quadrants are Rosemary, who
is an Engaged Optimist and is in the Quadrant of Confusion, and Katie, who is a Young
Urbanist and is in the Quadrant of Unironic Enthusiasm.
James, our Curmudgeon persona, fits squarely into the Quadrant of Lulz. However, he
was developed based on interview data with people who had greatly varying levels of
situated local knowledge--so technically, he represents both the Curmudge on quadrant
and the Bad First Impression quadrant.
Colleen & Carlos, our persona couple, are solidly in the Young Urbanist quadrant, but
on the second scale, the interviews we based them on didn't lead us to categorize
people in any particular direction. They have some Web 2.0 literacy, but not a high
level, and they have a moderately sincere/moderately ironic reaction to content. Thus,
we put them in the center of that quadrant —a place of Caution.
Digital Literacies
While the dual-quadrant heuristic was useful to think about how different attitudes
combine with different knowledges, it is not how we first divided our data and decided
who our personas would be. It is difficult to take an assemblage of interview data and
quadrisect it into four discrete imaginary people; however, the characteristic that we
ultimately used to group our interviews into personas was digital literacy practices, in a
more specific way than "Web 2.0 literacy" as stated in our quadrant scheme.
Everyone we interviewed had some kind of digital literacy; however, they were of
varying levels as well as kinds. We observed four general kinds of literacy practices
that we were able to operationalize into personas:

High Web 2.0 literacy, but not on social networking sites --this is the "oldschool" user who prefers forum posts and listserv discussions and is very
skeptical about things like Facebook or Twitter

High Web 2.0 literacy, frequent user of social networking sites --this is the
"new-school" user who is likely to be younger and very enthusiastic about
posting things on the Internet

Moderate Web 2.0 literacy, content consumer but not producer --this is the
"lurker", someone who loves to read blogs and watch YouTube videos, but who
rarely contributes content

Low Web 2.0 literacy, infrequent user of Internet--this is the "e-mail only"
user, someone who strongly prefers print media to digital, and prefers digital
media that have a strong resemblance to familiar genres of print media
These four categories were the keystones of each of our pe rsonas. Once they were
established, we saw other similarities in our data and were able to flesh out these basic
types of users with more social information and characteristics drawn from our
interviews. The four personas that follow are fully developed fictional people that we
15
are confident that a designer or developer could imagine walking down the Michigan
Avenue corridor as well as sitting at home looking at a website.
16
Personas
In this section we present the four personas we are delivering for this pr oject. They
include Katie, an undergraduate student and avid user of social networking sites;
James, a local resident and professional with ample computer experience but a
skeptical attitude; Rosemary, an older community activist with limited web literacy; and
Colleen and Carlos, a younger couple beginning to build a life together in Lansing.
Each persona includes a description, their persona sheet, and an example of their use
of a social networking / Web 2.0 / user -generated content (UGC) website. We
developed this last element, which is not normally part of a persona, to help flesh out
the personas specifically as users of UGC sites, since that’s an important aspect of the
OMA site.
17
Katie
One of our persona groups is the “Facebooker” Persona. The Facebooke r is usually
younger than the other personas; typically between eighteen and twenty -five years old.
Facebookers are huge fans of social networking sites and use them very frequently.
They like to use the internet to keep in touch with friends, plan and sea rch for
upcoming events, email, and get the majority of their news. They have a fairly positive
view towards the corridor in terms of its potential, however they currently do not go to
the corridor beyond driving through on the way downtown or the occasion al Frandor
Shopping Center visit. While they do feel positively about the improvement of the
corridor, they are not planning on staying in the area for more than a few years and
will most likely not be in the area long enough to see the changes made. For t his
reason, they tend to not have much of an interest in participating in the process.
For our Facebooker, we came up with Katie as our model. Katie is a 20 year old junior
at Michigan State University. She has lived in East Lansing since her freshman year ,
and she plans on staying in the area until graduation. Once she graduates, she wants
to move out of state; preferably somewhere warm. She uses the internet often,
primarily to check her Facebook and chat with her friends. She also gets the majority of
her news online and only rarely will read a print copy of a newspaper. She likes the
Lansing State Journal Online for her news, but actually gets a lot of current events
information through word of mouth from friends or family, or even Facebook posts. She
does not visit the corridor very often because she does not think there is anything fun
for students her age to do. Katie and every other “Facebooker” are important people
for developers of the Our Michigan Avenue website to take into consideration. People
like Katie love social networking sites, so if there is no sort of networking available on
the Our Michigan Avenue site, they may not be interested and will not use the site for
anything. Katie also shows developers that they need to take short term residen ts into
consideration and try to come up with ways to make them want to be involved with the
corridor.
18
19
Katie’s social networking example is her Facebook profile page.
20
James
James represents the persona we labeled “curmudg eon” or skeptic if you will. The parts
of James that make up his persona are the same or similar to the others in this
category. James is a 37-year-old Lansing resident who works for a local television
station as a video editor. James is the kind of person who does not like watching local
news but for some reason does. In his case he watches simply because he works for
the station he watches. Televised national news does not interest him because it’s too
much like the local news he has to sit through every evening. Instead, James gets all
his national news online.
James represents our persona of people who use the web efficiently and are very
engaged with online media. However, he is in his late 30’s and has been on the web
since the beginning so his uses could be classified as more “old school”. He uses
forums effectively to gather information and feels that he can accomplish any web task
he sets out to do. James is very knowledgeable about user -generated content (Web
2.0) but refuses to use social networkin g sites; "Those sites are pathetic”, he says.
James has a personal homepage that he built and has no desire to allow Facebook or
Myspace to rob him of his creativity. He likes to network but would prefer his good old
forums to social networking sites anywa y. When James wants information he gets
online and finds it himself—no help needed. He has a very good digital understanding
and because of that he represents the persona of people who have “high digital
literacy”. At least one interviewee (Mark W.) had qu ite similar Internet usage habits.
James is pessimistic about Lansing and Michigan Avenue. James represents our
interviewee (Ed P.) who said: "I'd like to have hope that things will change for the
better, but I don't think there is the money to make impro vements." Because of this
attitude he represents our “skeptic” persona. On our local knowledge / optimism graph,
James is in the “curmudgeon” quadrant, informed but unimpressed with efforts to
improve the region.
On our sincerity / web literacy graph, James is in the “quadrant of lulz”: strong
understanding but low opinion of UGC sites. This makes him a difficult user to reach.
One way developers could benefit from James is by understanding there are people out
there who know how to use the internet and kno w how to find information, people who
like forums and want to comment on things, but may not use the site unless there is a
highly motivating factor.
21
22
James’ social networking example is a post and user statistics from one of the forum
sites he enjoys.
23
Rosemary
Rosemary is the persona who most strongly represents optimism: she is a 54 -year-old
partnered lesbian who lives in the city of Lansing, and has a positive, hopeful outlook
on the future of the Michigan Avenue corridor. She uses the area often, and while she
remembers better economic times, she is interested in seeing the Avenue reach its full
potential as a great place to socialize and spend time. She stands in for the many,
many engaged community members in Lansing and East Lansing who volunte er,
organize, and devote time to causes that they care about.
As a persona, Rosemary fits solidly into two of the quadrants we hypothesized to exist:
she is an engaged optimist, and she is in the quadrant of confusion, meaning she has
low web 2.0 literacy and high sincerity in her interactions and reactions to content. At
the same time, she is not the user we originally planned as being "old". Our
preconceptions about people's attitudes and internet usage made us conflate the
"curmudgeon" with someone much older; however, we found through interviews that
one does not have to be old to be pessimistic and somewhat detached. Moreover,
things more likely to be associated with age were attitudes toward the internet and
social networking sites, and comfort with use of web 2.0 technologies. Additionally, on
the optimism and situated knowledge scale, she is in the quadrant where community
activists are most likely to be placed.
None of our personas represent community members with no web literacy or a total
lack of access, but Rosemary is our most tentative user of digital technology. She uses
email regularly, and would be confident with a word processor (as long as they don't go
around changing the version on her and moving all the buttons around) but doesn't do
much else with computers. She sees all this new stuff as something for younger people
to do, and would have to be persuaded why she in particular would have something to
gain from learning how to participate at Our Michigan Avenue, and then doing so.
At 54, Rosemary is not technically "old", but she represents users who did not grow up
with home computing technology and the internet, and has had to learn them as an
adult, possibly from impatient people. Her personal preference is for print media, and
then digital media that resemble print media in some way --email is a system that's
been around for a long time (relative to other digital developments like Twitter) and
has a strong connection (as far as use goes) to "snail mail", its print cousin. Her
profile reminds developers to be patient with users who don't just "get it" right away
and need more guidance than others.
24
25
Rosemary’s web use example—not a social-networking site example, since she is not
comfortable with that genre—is a web email, her preferred form.
26
Colleen & Carlos
The persona of Colleen and Carlos represent the busy new homeowners of the Michigan
Avenue Corridor area. Their characteristics, attitudes, and behaviors are based on
qualitative data gathered via a number of interviews wi th Corridor residents as well as
direct observation of new homeowners in this region. Colleen and Carlos are in their
late 20s, newly engaged, and fairly recent homebuyers. Both work full -time and hold
four-year degrees. Carlos recently opened an independe nt textbook store in East
Lansing, much like one of our interviewees, Tom M. Although she already holds a
bachelor’s degree, Colleen is taking computer programming classes at Lansing
Community College as she begins to pursue a second degree and a potential career
change, similar to another interviewee, Samantha A. They spend their limited free time
with one another, working on projects around the house. They’ll occasionally socialize
with a few select friends that they’ve known for years, unwinding while dr inking beer at
a bar like Moriarty’s or Claddagh or while watching sports on TV.
Raised in the Lansing area and committed to remaining in and improving the area,
Colleen and Carlos would be interested in the OMA project if provided with more details
and a quick, simple way to get involved. Although they initially purchased their home
along the Corridor because of its affordability, this couple enjoys putting time and
effort into improving their house and their neighborhood when they’re able. However,
they don’t typically observe this same level of enthusiasm and care for the community
from their neighbors and are tempted to move away from the Corridor to a different
area of Lansing or East Lansing once the housing market improves, and they are able
to sell their house. They see the OMA project as a way to meet like -minded people and
improve the quality of their neighborhood.
Carlos and Colleen represent the relatively web -savvy, younger homeowners along the
Corridor that enjoy using technology and have a desi re to be engaged in their
community. They enjoy contributing both online and in their community when they have
the time, but their extremely hectic lifestyles mean that their free time is very limited.
They find themselves more inclined to contribute in re al-life and virtual environments
when presented with easy, convenient ways to participate. This frequently
overwhelmed, yet still hopeful, couple remind us as web designers that our site must be
easy to navigate with clear, concise information that will se rve to inspire site visitors to
action. Accustomed to using social media and blogs like Facebook, LiveJournal, and
FAIL Blog on a daily basis, like our interviewee Ellen D., Carlos and Colleen also show
us that we must consider in our Web design how to bet ter establish a sense of
community and, perhaps, attitudes of humor or lightness on our site as well as create
additional opportunities for users to contribute and interact with one another.
27
28
The social networking example for the Carlos & Colleen per sona is a comment from
Colleen on a wedding-related blog post created by her friend on LiveJournal.com.
Colleen, who uses the internet more frequently than Carlos, enjoys reading blogs when
she has time and will post to sites like LiveJournal and Facebook on a daily basis.
29
30
Personas in Practice
Persona Suggestion: Profiles Tab
One way site designers and developers can use individual personas is to imagine what
additional features they might want to see on the site, and what those features do for
those users.
For example, Katie is web-savvy and uses social networking sites extensively. She
wants to browse other users' profiles when she first arrives at the site. So she suggests
we add a “Profiles” tab to the site, letting users navigate directly to a l ist of other users
and their profile information.
This
suggestion
doesn’t say a
lot about how
the Profiles
feature might
work, because
designing the
site isn’t
Katie’s job.
She’s just (we
imagine)
comparing it
to the socialnetworking
sites she
already uses,
and giving us
her initial
impression.
In this case, one function of the Katie profile is to inspire the developers to consider a
new feature, in terms of how a category of users might approach the site. But the
profile also helps designers by labeling t his suggestion with Katie’s identity—something
created specifically to be memorable and significant for the developers. To keep this
linkage (a kind of branding) clear to them, the suggestion can be recorded with Katie’s
name and picture, as shown here. Developers can think of it as “Katie’s suggestion”,
rather than just one more anonymous item on a list.
31
Vignettes
Personas represent users, and so one of their functions can be to take the place of
actual users who might be giving feedback to designers and developers. Since with real
users that feedback often takes the form of review comments and user stories, we
imagined designers
brainstorming with the
personas in hand, imagining
what kinds of comments the
personas might make. We
collected a few such
comments as persona
vignettes.
Here we see how these
vignettes can be phrased as
they might actually be
written or spoken by a
persona, and associated
with the persona’s portrait
photo to help developers
recall that persona’s needs, goals, and attitudes, which explain the motivation for the
vignette.
32
Cross-Persona Design
The previous examples both focus on using a single persona to derive an improvement
idea or define an existing limitation for the OMA site. In some cases, it’s more
productive to consider questions that cross all personas. Part of the function of
personas is to remind developers of the diversity of the user base. What features might
address that diversity
specifically?
For this case, we
imagined that the
diversity of our personas
might suggest to the
website designers that it
would be useful to
present another view of
information on the site,
categorized by interest
area.
This view would not
replace any of the
existing item categories
(Ideas, Stories, Opinions,
and Photos). Instead, it
would use metadata (such as keywords) to decide which items in each category
corresponded to Residential, Retail, Green Space, or Office interests.
As with the other items in this chapter, this isn’t necessarily a suggestion for the site,
so much as an illustration of how an overview of all the personas can prompt new
development for the site.
33
Other Observations
Word Clouds
Another visualization of our data we created for site designers and developers is a
series of word clouds, like the tag clouds found on many U GC sites. These show the
relative frequency of key concepts that appeared in our interviews.
Who are the Interview Subjects, and what is their Living Situation?
34
How do Subjects Spend their Time?
How do subjects feel about the Corridor?
35
Persona Map
This map sketches relationships among the personas.
36
The personas are partly intended to represent the diversity of users, but it’s also useful
to consider their connections.
37
Conclusions
Personas are incredibly useful tools for web developers or designer s of any type. They
offer valuable insight as to what users or potential users expect from a product,
allowing developers to design something as effective and relevant to its users as
possible. The personas presented in this report provide the developers o f the Our
Michigan Avenue website with a wide range of potential users, as well as their wants
and needs for the site. They allow the site designers to really see the audience they are
trying to appeal to, and they demonstrate that that audience is very br oad and has
many different needs that need to be taken into account.
Along with providing developers with a representation of their audience, this report also
provides examples of how this audience and all its members can be catered to. For
example, the younger visitors to the site (The Facebooker) may be more inclined to use
it if the site mimicked the social networking sites they use on a regular basis.
Overall, people seem to think the Our Michigan Avenue website is a good idea and
could be a great tool for improving the current state of the corridor. Now it’s just up to
the developers to come up with ways to make these people actually want to use the
site and get involved. This report has provided plenty of ideas and suggestions, but the
developers are ultimately the ones who will decide if or how they will be used. With
help from our personas and this report, OurMichiganAve.org can become the useful
resource it was intended to be.
38
Appendix A: Original Data
Here we have included the transcript from two representative interviews.
For length reasons, the complete interview data, plus keyword analysis, is available in a
separate spreadsheet (Persona-Data-Mashup.xls). See Appendix C for more information.
We will also include the audio recording of one inter view as a separate file.
Interview: Samantha A and Ed P
Samantha A. & Ed P. 7, homeowners off the Corridor in Lansing
Ages: Sam, 30 & Ed, 28
Occupations: Sam: Manager at a financial institution, Ed: Marketing Research Specialist
at the same financial institution
Education: Sam: Bachelor’s in Sociology from UNLV, currently studying computer
programming via LCC classes. Ed: Working on Bachelor’s in Marketing Management
through LCC and Northwood University.
Where do you live, and how long have you been there? Do you plan on staying there for a while?
Sam: Our house is about one block south of Michigan Avenue, and a few blocks east of
Pennsylvania Ave. I bought the house about four years ago. It was affordable, and I was
ready to own my own place. I could buy a better house now because I’m making more
money, but I’m not going to be able to sell my place for a while, so I’m there for now.
Ed: I moved in about two years ago. We’re kind of forced to stay because it’s just too hard to
sell a house right now. Our house itself is nice, but most of the other houses in our
neighborhood are awful. There’s an abandoned house next to us that’s been empty since I’ve
lived there, and most of the other houses around us have turned into rental properties
because no one else can sell their houses around there or find homebuyers.
Sam: Our neighbors change all the time because of that. Sometimes it’s almost better that
they’re just renting because I know we won’t be stuck with them as long as if they were
actually buying a house. We have some horrible neighbors.
Ed: It seems like we keep investing money in our own house, but everyone else is letting their
places nearby fall apart, so it’s pointless. It just makes our house go down in value and
everything even though we work so hard to maintain and improve it.
Sam: We’d prefer to live either north or east of where we’re at now. We’re planning on staying
in the Lansing area for awhile, at least until we finish up school which is a few years away, but
it’d be nice to be in a different neighborhood.
Ed: There are other areas of the city that seem safer, and they’re not as trashed out as where
we’re at now.
What do you do for fun? What are your hobbies?
Sam: We honestly do homework for the most part when we’re not working. We like watching
movies and sports at home too.
7
Full names of interviewees have been redacted from this version of the report.
39
Ed: We like drinking beer.
Sam: Yeah, drinking beer, either at home or at the bar. We also like traveling and go to
Chicago a lot. We like socializing, but we don’t get out as much as we used to.
Who do you do typically spend time with? How did you meet those people?
Ed: We’ll hang out with my brother a lot. He lives in Okemos. I’ll go to football games and
stuff with him. We’ll see Sam’s parents at least once a week too—they’re over on the Westside
of Lansing. Most of my friends have left the area though, either for work or just to live
someplace else because they’d been in Lansing their whole lives.
Sam: I don’t really even have that excuse. A lot of my friends are still in the area, but I don’t
see them that much.
Ed: When we go out, we’ll usually go to Claddagh. We used to go to the Nuthouse more, but
there’s better food and TVs at Claddagh, and I guess we like the crowd better too.
Sam: It just depends on what type of people watching we want to do.
How interested would you say you are in what happens in your area (i.e. local businesses, politics,
employment in the area, etc.)?
Both: We’re very interested!
Sam: I know we both are very interested in improving the area. Everything feels stuck right
now, but we’d really like things to get better. We want to contribute in some way to where
we’re at. Like, in our neighborhood, like we were talking about, no one else really works on
their house or their property. We still take care of our place because we feel a sense of
responsibility to where we’re at, and we want to do our little part to not add to the negativity.
Ed: I think it’s like, if you do the work on your end, maybe your actions will inspire others. I’d
like to be a positive influence. I know when we did some work on the outside of our house,
one of our neighbors started in on a similar project soon after. He still hasn’t finished it, a year
later, but still…
Sam: Yeah, there’s a roofer that lives across the street from us—that’s what he does for a
living—but he hasn’t had siding or a real roof on his place in well over a year. He put up all
that pink insulation, that Pink Panther stuff, about two years ago but never put up shingles or
anything.
Ed: Then, a year later, the insulation got nasty, so he just put more pink insulation over it. I
don’t know if he just works on roofing jobs all day, so by the time he gets home, he can’t find
the motivation to do it or what. It’s annoying though. I hate that pink house!
Do you usually vote in local elections? Are you involved in local politics in any other ways, such as
attending city council meetings or participating in fundraising for certain politicians?
Sam: I always vote in national elections, but I really only vote in local elections when they’re
at the same time as national ones. I’ll probably vote in the mayoral election.
Ed: This is the first year I’m actually registered to vote in Lansing. I was registered in Okemos
previously, and I wasn’t as into voting there because I felt like other people were good about
getting stuff done. I didn’t feel like I had to be as responsible. Now that I’m in Lansing, I’ll be
voting all the time. I feel like I have to step up more.
Sam: We’re not involved in politics or city meetings in any other way though.
Ed: I’d consider being more involved if there was somebody worthwhile running for
something. I haven’t felt inspired by local politics lately whatsoever.
40
Tell me a little about the living conditions in your neighborhood:
List from both Sam and Ed: There are a lot of rental properties and some abandoned homes.
There’s the pink insulation house across the street, and a guy who parks lots of cars in his
lawn across the street too. There are a couple of shining houses in the neighborhood, but the
rest are run down. A lot of the houses are built in the same style, with a porch on the front,
and people just use that as a drunk storage space and put all kinds of crap in there.
Sam: People will come by the house pretty regularly to solicit us to do yardwork or try to
make money somehow. We’ll sometimes have people approach us if we’re outside at night
and just straight up ask for money. These aren’t kids—they’re always adults.
Ed: We feel safe in our house, but we don’t really walk around much at night. We have a
motion sensor light on the back of our house, and whenever that goes off at night, we’re
checking things out. It’ll make us a little anxious. I don’t hesitate to take the trash out at night
or come home after dark or anything like that though.
Sam: We’re always alert, for sure, always aware of our surroundings.
Ed: One thing that really bugs me about our street is that we are the only people that ever
have our porch light on. The rest of the street is so dark in the evening because there are only
those yellow streetlights. It makes the space seem even more abandoned and unsafe.
Sam: We can see one of the parking lots from the medical buildings on Michigan Avenue
behind our house, and it’s so bright over there. It seems odd to be so close to two major
roads, and our street seems totally dead. We’ll see the security trucks from the hospital patrol
those lots a little bit, and they’ll come in our neighborhood but not on our actual street.
Ed: We don’t really see police patrols through our neighborhood at all. We’ll see them
sometimes, but it’s always a surprise to see them, so they must not be there that often.
Sam: We get a lot of foot traffic during the day near our house, mostly the Sparrow staff
going out for walks on their lunch break or just parking on our street and walking to work so
they don’t have to pay. That makes me feel better, just having lots of people walking around.
After dark though, there aren’t many people around.
What do you think about the area on and around the stretch of Michigan Ave. near your house in
general? What are your thoughts on the entertainment venues, restaurants, and recreational
spaces?
Ed: I like what they’re trying to do right now, especially closer to downtown, near the Stadium
District. I know that’s not the space we’re talking about, but I like the projects that they’re
taking on, and I’d love to see that start happening closer to where we live.
Sam: I agree, it feels much more like a real city down there, and it feels safe and like
somewhere you’d actually want to spend time. Getting over to the Stadium District from our
house though, like from Pennsylvania over to the stadium, it feels unsafe. There are some
cute places near there, like on that corner where the shelter (City Rescue Mission) is at, but
the shelter itself seems so sketchy. That sounds horrible, but I definitely see people feel
uncomfortable waiting in line to get into a bar over there because there are homeless guys all
over the place outside. It’s important to have a shelter, of course, but it’s a little awkward to
have it right where it is, at least for the businesses right there.
Ed: There are a lot of places by us that are nicer though. The Resurrection Church is really
well kept-up—I’m not a churchgoer, but I appreciate them as a neighbor because they always
keep their property looking really nice and maintain a good space—and the cab company
nearby, the Mediterranean Deli, and the MSU Extension building are all nicer-looking places.
Sam: They look nice because they all have clean, brick fronts, and they look like nicer
buildings. The problem with them though, is that they’re surrounded by abandoned buildings.
So they stand out as being more modern and clean, but everything around them is still bad.
41
Ed: I guess they could use some more bars and restaurants, but I don’t know how many could
really last on the same stretch of Michigan Avenue. I don’t think they’d all get enough traffic
to stay in business. I’m trying to think of businesses that would really thrive there.
Sam: I think if there was enough variety, if there were restaurants and stores that weren’t
already around, they could do fine. Gone Wired Café is a good example of that—that little
corner right there with the café and Emil’s and everything. They could really build it up more
like they’ve tried to do with downtown East Lansing. I know that space is struggling a bit too,
but it seems to get okay traffic, and it just looks better over there. The storefronts have a
unified look, and it’s more modern. Some of those businesses that are in Frandor, like Amici’s
Deli, could also do well on Michigan Avenue closer to us.
Ed: Parking is kind-of a problem on Michigan Avenue though. I guess businesses that didn’t
really need walk-in business—like insurance companies, accounting firms, that kind-of thing—
could do well on Michigan Ave. I’d just like businesses to move in to those empty spaces and
maintain the facades of the buildings. That would make such a big difference.
Sam: I’m thinking about parking and how in places like Chicago, even though the parking
sucks, there are concentrations of little stores and restaurants in areas, and they all get lots of
business. They also do a nice job of keeping the storefronts looking like they were planned
out. Obviously, Lansing is not Chicago, we don’t have that many people here, but still…
Ed: Physical improvements to the existing buildings would make a huge difference. Things just
look worn out, and it’s uninspiring. Those old business in the front, house in the back buildings
were probably really interesting and quirky back when they first went up along Michigan
Avenue, but they look sad and dated now.
What are two of your favorite places along Michigan Avenue (the stretch from Harrison Ave. in E.L.
to right around where the Lugnuts Stadium)? What are two of your least favorite places?
List from Ed and Sam:
Favorites: Aesthetically, the Resurrection Church is always kept up well and their property
looks great. The space around the Rescue Mission is all nice except for the Mission itself. That
little stretch near the MSU Extension building is good too—it looks modern and clean—several
brick buildings around there with a uniform look—it seems well-planned out. We seem to
remember seeing some types of planters or something closer to downtown earlier this year—
they had rain catchers or something like that—it was some type of eco-friendly gardening or
something, but it was nice to have that little bit of greenspace in the city. Would love to see
more of that.
Least favorite: All the empty spaces, especially the abandoned gas stations and car dealership
lots. It’s nice to have Sears nearby, but that stretch where they’re at (in Frandor) looks
horrible from the road, as does the golf course across the street that’s never taken care of.
How do you feel about the future of that same stretch of Michigan Avenue? (Optimistic,
pessimistic, something else entirely?)
Sam: I’m optimistic. I know it takes time to make changes, but the fact that Lansing’s even
trying is good.
Ed: I’m more pessimistic. I’d like to have hope that things will change for the better, but I
don’t think there’s the money to make improvements. I’d really love to see them figure out
how to get more traffic from the Eastside to downtown, like getting MSU students to visit
Lansing more. There’s already great public transportation in place—the CATA route is so quick
down Michigan Avenue, I just took it to and from the MSU football game recently, and it was
ridiculously easy, and that free trolley that goes up and down Michigan is available too.
Are you familiar with the Michigan Avenue Corridor Initiative?
42
Both Sam and Ed had heard about it but could not remember where they’d heard about it.
They didn’t know what all was included in it but remembered liking the sounds of it when they
either read about this or heard about it on the radio.
When you are looking for local information, where do you typically go?
City of Lansing website, LSJ, Ingham County website to look up information on their neighbors
Which local newspapers do you read, if any?
LSJ, mostly online. Receive the community newspaper that comes for free but never read it.
Where do you get local information online?
State News online, LSJ, City of Lansing site
Where do you get your national news?
NBC Nightly News, cnn.com, listen to NPR pretty religiously
How much time do you spend online in an average week?
About 20-24 hours a week
What kinds of things do you do online?
Sam: Homework and research, but also a lot of entertainment like games, social media
(Facebook, Live Journal), and shopping
Ed: I primarily go online for school. Sam’s online way more than I am.
How do you access the internet? [Home computer, work, cell phone, public computer, school,
anything else?]
Sam: computers at work and home
Ed: work and home computers and sometimes my iPhone
This interview particularly influenced the Colleen & Carlos persona.
Interview: Rebecca W.
Rebecca W., homeowner just off the Corridor in East Lansing
Age: 25
Occupation: Administrative Assistant
Education: Bachelor’s in Journalism from Grand V alley State
Where do you live, and how long have you been there? Do you plan on staying there for a while?
I live off of Michigan Avenue (between Grand River and Michigan) in East Lansing, about a
block away from the historical district. I bought my house in July with my fiancé. We’ll be
there for a while—it’s close to where both of us work (near Lake Lansing Road for Becky, on
campus for her fiancé), and we’re happy there so far.
We chose to live in the neighborhood we’re in because it was in our price range—pretty
affordable—and it seemed quiet and conveniently located.
43
What do you do for fun? What are your hobbies?
I spend a lot of time at home, working on stuff around the house since it’s still pretty new to
me. I also got engaged recently, so I’m always doing wedding planning and figuring out that
stuff lately. I live with my fiancé and his brother (for the time being), so I’ll usually just hang
out with them at home and watch TV or movies. I’ll workout once in a while too.
Who do you do typically spend time with? How did you meet those people?
Usually Steve (her fiancé) and his brother, since they’re both around the house a lot, and I’m
usually there too. Most of my friends that I’ve known for awhile don’t live around here
anymore. They primarily left the area for work or for school. I do have some friends around
Lansing that I met in college or through mutual friends though, and we’ll hang out with them
once in awhile.
How interested would you say you are in what happens in your area (i.e. local businesses, politics,
employment in the area, etc.)?
I’m fairly interested. I’m probably more interested now that I own a home in the area.
Personally, I have a job that’s secure, and I don’t have those everyday worries about our
economy and how things are going around here, so it’s not always that immediate. However,
my mom works for the State, and there’s always the concern lately that she’s going to get laid
off or at least have to take more furlough days and be out income. I also have an uncle who
works for GM, and he recently lost most of his benefits. So it’s something that concerns or
interests me when it comes up in my personal life, but I don’t know that I think about it a ton.
I’m pretty committed to already staying in this area because this is where my family lives, and
I own a house and work here. It’d be nice for things to pick up around the area, of course, but
it’s not like I’m planning to leave if they don’t turn around anytime soon.
Do you usually vote in local elections? Are you involved in local politics in any other ways, such as
attending city council meetings or participating in fundraising for certain politicians?
Yes, I always vote, but I don’t participate in politics in any other way. You will never find me
at a city council meeting or anything—I see those meetings on TV sometimes and just change
the channel right away. Those people are crazy.
Tell me a little about the living conditions in your neighborhood:
Usually, it feels like the type of place where you can just leave your doors unlocked, and
everything’s safe. Steve’s brother (her roommate) recently had some money stolen out of his
car that was parked in our driveway, but that doesn’t seem typical. Our neighborhood is really
all homeowners, except for one apartment complex that’s behind our house. There are a lot of
younger families moving into the neighborhood—people mostly in their 30s with little kids—
and the rest of the homeowners are in their 70s and 80s. Like, our next door neighbor, Elmer,
is in his 80s. Houses have gone up for sale off and on since we’ve been in the neighborhood,
but they sell right away as long as they’re priced right, and they’re usually bought by younger
families.
We have met most of our neighbors but only in passing. We don’t hang out with anyone in the
neighborhood or anything. There are usually a lot of people out and about by us. People who
live there will have their kids out, and MSU students will always park on the street in front of
our house and then walk to campus so they don’t have to pay to park.
It’s usually really quiet. The students in the apartment complex behind us are loud sometimes,
but it’s not a big deal. We haven’t had any real problems living there so far.
What do you think about the area on and around the stretch of Michigan Ave. near your house in
general? What are your thoughts on the entertainment venues, restaurants, and recreational
spaces?
44
It’s not bad right by Michigan and Harrison, near where we’re at. When you head into Lansing
more though, like that stretch where the Dirty Dollar used to be, there’s really nothing there.
It’s just run down, and there’s no reason to spend any time around there. I’d like to see more
new options in the area—different restaurants and bars, maybe a park or a dog park. They
have the skate park nearby, but I’d like a space to just walk around or hang out. I tend to go
to bars in East Lansing, but I’d prefer to visit places in Lansing if there were some more
options. I’d rather not hang out with all the younger students if I don’t have to.
What are two of your favorite places along Michigan Avenue (the stretch from Harrison Ave. in E.L.
to right around where the Lugnuts Stadium)? What are two of your least favorite places?
I like the Green Door, but I usually end up going there after I’ve been out to other places. It’s
kinda lame, I’m sure, but it always seems like fun after I’ve been out drinking somewhere
else. I like going to Clara’s too, although I don’t go there that often. I really just dislike the
empty spaces along Michigan Avenue, like the dead zone near the old Dirty Dollar that we
talked about, and that vacant spot near Sawyer’s. Those spaces make Michigan Avenue look
dingy and run down.
How do you feel about the future of that same stretch of Michigan Avenue? (Optimistic,
pessimistic, something else entirely?)
I feel pretty optimistic. It seems like they’re really trying to improve things in downtown
Lansing, and I think that might expand and trickle down into this space at some point. I do
think people are really trying, but it just takes a lot of time. I’d like to see Michigan Avenue be
more user-friendly.
Are you familiar with the Michigan Avenue Corridor Initiative?
No, I’ve never heard of that before.
When you are looking for local information, where do you typically go?
I’ll usually look at the City of East Lansing’s website for info about the community itself, like
recycling, free events, that kind of thing.
Which local newspapers do you read, if any?
I read the LSJ, mostly online.
Where do you get your national news?
CNN—I’ll look at their website and watch them on TV. I also watch the Today Show in the
morning.
How much time do you spend online in an average week?
I’m on about 14 hours a week, probably.
What kinds of things do you do online?
Email, Facebook, research stuff for my wedding, that type of stuff. I’ve been finding local
businesses to use for my wedding by searching online. I like the larger wedding sites that let
you enter your ZIP code, and then I can find what I’m looking for locally. I’m more inclined to
visit a business if they have a website, and I can just email them my questions. It seems like a
lot of businesses offer that now, although some don’t.
How do you access the internet? [Home computer, work, cell phone, public computer, school,
anything else?]
On my computers at home and at work
45
This interview does not strongly resemble any of the four personas we delivered in
particular, though it has common elements with them. It’s indicative of how aggregated
data from multiple interviews informed all the personas, and also shows that our data
could be used to produce more distinct personas for a richer development process.
46
Appendix B: Other Sources
Besides our interview data, described at length in the Research Results chapter, we
made use of a number of other sources in researching and developing our personas.
These are listed here.
Michigan Avenue Corridor resources:
Richard Kibbey, Michigan Avenue: A Report on the State of the Avenue . Prepared for
ANC Board of Directors, June 2004. This lengthy , detailed report on the Eastside
neighborhood portion of Michigan Avenue collects economic, demographic, and
impressionistic data from Corridor activities and inhabitants. We were particularly
struck with some of the quotes from local business owners, but the quantitative data
also fed our persona construction process, as noted in the Research Results chapter.
Dominic Adams, Annie Fardell, et al. Transforming the Michigan Avenue Corridor. A
“complete streets and transit-oriented development study” created by the MSU Student
Research Team, 2009.
Persona resources:
Chad Maxwell and Bari Wieselman Schulman, Personified Segmentation: Fusing
Qualitative and Quantitative Evidence. Razorfish presentation, 2009.
Shannon Ford, Creating Quality Personas. Avenue A | Razorfish insight paper, January
2005.
Tina Calabria, An Introduction to Personas and How to Create Them. Written for Step
Two Designs website, March 2004.
Whitney Quensenbery, Putting Personas to Work: Improving Your Scenarios, Reviews
and Usability Testing with Personas. Prepared for STC Rocky Mountain, January 2006.
Persona photo sources:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fchouse/3091541869/sizes/l/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/p-dub/2181447966/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ramk13/301375755/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mazakar/873466940/sizes/o/
47
Appendix C: Analyses
Interview Data
Our primary analysis is contained in a separate document, the Persona Data Mashup
spreadsheet, which is not included here for space reasons. That spreadsheet inc ludes
all of the transcribed interview data, plus the keywords derived from it.
To read the spreadsheet, note that the first row and column are headers. After that,
columns are paired, with two columns for each subject. The first column contains
derived keywords; the second actual transcript data. Rows represent interview
questions.
What follows is a condensed quantitative segmentation of that data.
Keyword Analysis of Interview Data
Can you tell me a little about yourself?
What do you do for a living?
Where do you live?
How long have you been there?
Do you plan on staying there for a while?
Corridor Homeowner
College Grad
Lesbian
Investor
Graduate Student
Research Technician
Registered Nurse
Undergraduate Student
Finance
Marketing
Business Owner
Hospitality
Bookstore Manager
Activist
Professor
Office Manager
Communications Director
Living In East Lansing
Not Living In Corridor
Living In Corridor
Living In Lansing
In Location Less Than 1 Year
In Location Less Than 5 Years
In Location Less Than 10 Years
In Location More Than 10 Years
Staying Less Than 5 Years
Staying Indefinitely
Staying Less Than 1 Year
1
4
1
1
2
1
1
3
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
3
7
8
2
5
7
1
1
4
6
2
48
7%
27%
7%
7%
13%
7%
7%
20%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
20%
47%
53%
13%
33%
47%
7%
7%
27%
40%
13%
If you don't mind me asking, how old are
you?
What do you do for fun/Do you have any
hobbies?
Who do you do those things with?
How interested would you say you are in
what happens in your area?
Twenty-Something
Thirty-Something
Forty-Something
Fifty-Something
Sixty-Something
Busy
Home Improvement
Playing Sports
Wedding Planning
Relaxing At Home
Watching Television
Watching Movies
Exercising
Reading
Cooking
Baking
Exploring
Adventuring
Gardening
Music Fan
Playing Games
Travel
Watching Sports
Drinking Beer
Musician
Going To Bars
Writing
Going to Dinner
Social Events
Time With Partner
Time With Family
Time With College Friends
Time With High School Friends
Time With Friends
Time With Work Friends
Time Alone
Time With Rotating Cast
Somewhat interested
Concerned
Very Interested
7
5
1
1
1
4
1
3
1
1
2
7
3
2
1
1
1
1
1
4
2
1
2
3
1
4
1
1
2
6
7
5
2
3
2
1
1
7
1
8
49
47%
33%
7%
7%
7%
27%
7%
20%
7%
7%
13%
47%
20%
13%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
27%
13%
7%
13%
20%
7%
27%
7%
7%
13%
40%
47%
33%
13%
20%
13%
7%
7%
47%
7%
53%
How interested are you in local politics?
Do you usually vote in local elections?
What do you think of the living conditions
in your neighborhood?
Are you interested in things like local
businesses, real-estate development,
employment?
Are you interested in local events,
shopping, or other things to do in the area?
Limited
Not Interested
Very Interested
No
Yes
No Other Local Political Activity
Active in Political Community Groups
NA to corridor
Fairly Safe
Minor Occasional Petty Crime
Mostly Homeowners
New Young Families
Long-Time Older Residents
Wave Hello, Do Not Socialize
Some Crime
Financially Insecure
Good Mix of Residents
Lacking Some Amenities
Too Many Rental Properties
Inadequate Police Presence
Too Many Abandoned Houses
Frustrated
Well Maintained
Adequate Police Presence
Quiet
Nearby Bad Neighborhoods
Becoming Disconnected
Interested for Personal Sake
Very Interested
Would Like More Live Music Venues
Employment Concerns
Investment Opportunities
Mall Shopper
Very Interested In Events
Cultural Events
LGBT Events
Might Be Interested In Shopping
Local Shopper
Limited
Music Scene
7
2
3
5
10
6
1
6
6
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
1
2
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
3
1
1
1
2
1
4
1
1
2
1
1
50
47%
13%
20%
33%
67%
40%
7%
40%
40%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
13%
13%
7%
13%
13%
13%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
20%
7%
7%
7%
13%
7%
27%
7%
7%
13%
7%
7%
When you are looking for local
information, where do you go?
Do you read any of the local papers?
Do you get local information online?
Where do you get your national news?
Are you interested in meeting new people
in the area?
Where do you go for that?
Internet
City Website (East Lansing)
Lansing State Journal
The Hub
State News
Allen Neighborhood Center
City Pulse
City Website (Lansing)
County Website
Word of Mouth
Union
Lansing Labor Council
Online
The Voice
Ads in Neighborhood/on Campus
State News
Lansing State Journal
City Pulse
No
Yes
No
New York Times
Online
CNN
Today Show
MSNBC
RSS Feeds
Truthout.org
Democracy Now
The Week
National Broadcast
National Public Radio
Christian Science Monitor
Washington Post
The Daily Show
Yes
Not Specifically
Professional Networking
Bookstores
Not Corridor
4
2
3
1
2
1
2
3
2
3
1
1
1
1
1
5
7
5
2
9
1
5
12
8
1
1
1
1
1
1
4
2
1
1
1
6
2
1
1
1
51
27%
13%
20%
7%
13%
7%
13%
20%
13%
20%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
33%
47%
33%
13%
60%
7%
33%
80%
53%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
27%
13%
7%
7%
7%
40%
13%
7%
7%
7%
When I say "The Michigan Avenue
Corridor", what comes to mind, if
anything?
Do you spend time in the corridor area?
What do you do there?
Bar and Grill
Allen Neighborhood Center
Northstar Center
Social Networking Events
Community Organizing Events
Through Friends
Career Fairs
Unsure
Gone Wired?
Emil's?
Some Unsafe Areas
Blight
Homelessness
Potential
Too Many Empty Spaces
Run Down
Frandor
Harrison & Michigan
MA from GR to Capitol
Neighborhoods
Interesting Businesses
Closes at 9 PM
127 Through Capitol
Restaurants
Sparrow to Capitol
Does Not Spend Time
Passes Through
Makes Brief Stops
Yes
Harrison Roadhouse
Gone Wired
Quality Dairy
Green Door
Clara's
Frandor
Kroger
McDonalds
Lamai's Kitchen
Walks
Bikes
3
1
1
1
1
2
1
6
3
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
11
1
5
1
2
2
4
1
1
1
1
1
52
20%
7%
7%
7%
7%
13%
7%
40%
20%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
13%
7%
7%
73%
7%
33%
7%
13%
13%
27%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
How do you feel about the state of the
corridor?
Is the corridor a good space for you [and
your family, if appropriate]?
How do you feel about its future?
Markets
Mac's
Taco Cart
El Oasis
Soup Spoon
Video To Go
Lugnuts Stadium
Restaurants
Bookstores
Allen Neighborhood Center
Nail Salon
Olga's
Unappealing
Not Cohesive
Chains Detract From Space
Hospital Detracts From Space
Independent Stores Are Appealing
Run-Down
Offensive Businesses
Needs Improvement
Improving
Road Construction
Economically Depressed
Lots Of Traffic
Not Pedestrian Friendly
Empty
Scary
Has Good Parts
No
Poor Housing Quality
Acceptable
Useful
Good Public Transportation
Mildly Pessimistic
Stagnant
Needs Attractive Spaces
Needs Restaurants
Needs Cafes
Afraid of Commercialization
Needs Better Shopping
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
1
5
2
1
1
2
3
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
4
1
1
1
1
4
1
1
1
1
1
1
53
7%
13%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
13%
7%
7%
7%
7%
33%
13%
7%
7%
13%
20%
7%
13%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
27%
7%
7%
7%
7%
27%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
Would you like to be able to participate in
improving the Michigan Avenue Corridor?
Are you familiar with the Michigan Avenue
Corridor Initiative?
How often do you use the web?
Do you consider yourself a novice,
competent, or expert web user?
What kinds of things do you do on the
web?
How do you access the internet?
Have you ever used Facebook, Myspace or
another site where you created a personal
profile?
Pessimistic
Ambivalent
Optimistic
Unsure
Doesn't See Connection to Website
Would Contribute Ideas
Would Assist With Specific, Concrete Tasks
No
Not Enough Time
Might Participate in a Project
Would Like to Have a Voice
Yes
Resistant to Website to Facilitate
Only if Grassroots
No
Vaguely
Daily
Infrequently
Competent
Expert
Novice
Homework
Research
Social Networking
Email
Music
News
Entertainment
Hobbies
Wasting Time
Shopping
Forums
Home Computer
Work Computer
School Computers
Cell Phone
Facebook
No
Message Boards
LinkedIn
2 13%
1
7%
4 27%
1
7%
1
7%
1
7%
2 13%
3 20%
1
7%
3 20%
1
7%
1
7%
1
7%
1
7%
12 80%
2 13%
14 93%
1
7%
5 33%
3 20%
1
7%
5 33%
10 67%
9 60%
11 73%
1
7%
6 40%
8 53%
3 20%
1
7%
1
7%
2 13%
15 100%
10 67%
2 13%
4 27%
11 73%
1
7%
1
7%
1
7%
54
Twitter
Likes It
Convenient
User-Driven
Bittersweet
Waste of Time
Doesn't Like the Big Sites
Prefers Message Boards
Finds it Confusing
Doesn't Find it Useful
For Kids
If yes - how do you feel about it?
1
3
4
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
7%
20%
27%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
7%
13%
7%
OMA Profiles
The OMA profile collection described in the Research Methodology chapter produced the
following data:
Username
Created
Ainsley
Ainsley Elder
becca ebner
Camron Gnass
Catherine
Chris Singer
EsideSpartan
Franny
gardner
ggetto
jallen
James Michael Burke
Jeff Chenoweth
Jeremy Dowsett
Joe Manzella
John Monberg
Joseph Morsello
justinW
Keri Gardner
laleah
Lori Bates
lorirose39
Michael Wojcik
Mike Burke
Musherf Alamri
Nina E.
Pete Rossman
rossmanp
Ryan Norris
sean
Sean Thomas
Steph Carlisle
thoma587
March
April
March
May
May
May
August
September
March
June
August
April
March
May
May
March
March
March
April
May
May
March
September
March
March
September
April
March
March
March
April
March
April
Profile Info
no
no
no
yes
no
yes
yes
no
no
yes
no
no
no
yes
no
no
no
no
no
no
no
no
yes
no
no
yes
no
no
no
no
yes
no
no
Articles
Most Recent Article
0
8
3
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
2
4
0
0
0
10
7
12
0
9
0
0
2
7
1
4
10
7
1
1
8
0
Stories
Most Recent Story
Points
Total Contributed
4 2009-04-21: A Woman of Many Interests0
2009-05-01: Bus Stops With Flair - Overview0
1
2009-04-29: Business Incubators
3 2009-04-19: Magdalena's Teahouse: Miko
0
0
2
0
1
0
1
0
1
0
1
3 2009-04-14: THE BEAD BOUTIQUE
0
0
1
1 2009-08-21: Coffee and Kindness
0
2009-05-01: The Building Power of Subsidies
0
0
2009-05-01: Enhancing Pedestrian Safety 3 2009-04-30: Joseph Sullivan
0
0
1
0
1
0
1
2009-05-01: Cleaning Up the Red Cedar River
3 2009-05-05: Denise Kelley: Association for
0 the Bingham Community
2009-04-29: Biking in the Michigan Avenue Corridor
2 2009-04-30: Former MSU student wants 0
Lansing to "go green"
2009-05-01: Incentives to Investors
0
0
1 2009-05-11: Gillespie Group -- Showcasing
0 the East Side
2009-05-07: Plans for Seniors
0
3
3 2009-04-14: A Change in Scenery--an MSU
0 Student's Perspective
0
0
2009-04-30: Evolving Into A Connected City3 2009-04-20: Dave Smith
0
2009-05-01: Celebrate Green Landscape
4 2009-04-23: Using Michigan Ave to exercise
0
2009-10-16: Recycling is MUY IMPORTANTE.
0
0
2009-05-01: Green Spaces Make Better Places
0
0
2009-04-29: Planting the Seeds: A Greener Michigan
3 2009-04-21:
Avenue
The Refugee Development Center
0
2009-04-30: Greening Michigan Ave: Example
3 2009-04-21:
Projects
Eric Larson-Impression 5 Science
0
Museum
2009-04-29: New Urbanism
5 2009-04-21: A student and a local
0
2009-05-01: Recycling Bins
3 2009-04-30: A Local Student
0
2009-04-30: Redevelopment and Rehabilitation
3 2009-04-21: Drew Bossler: General Manager
1
of Troppo
3 2009-04-21: Barber Love
0
This is also included as a separate document (Persona -OMA-Profiles.xls).
Some conclusions:

Most existing, contributing site users are MSU students who were assigned to
create content. Since the site is only about six months old, that’s something to
pay attention to but not necessarily a reason for concern.

Non-MSU-affiliated users were local business owners (and a church pastor)
who contributed to the site by mapping their place of business.

7 of 33 users (21%) added optional information to their profile. We’d like to
see that increase.
55
4
9
6
2
1
1
1
1
3
1
1
2
7
1
1
1
13
9
12
1
12
3
0
5
11
1
4
13
10
6
4
12
3

The most prolific contributor, Pete Rossman, added 17 items of various types
to the site. There were a handful of other “supercontributors”; other users only
created a few items. There were relatively few users in the middle.
56