Persona Experiment -- Want to Help?
April 04, 2003 | 
4 Comments
This last week at UI 7 West I was able to talk to and learn from quite a few people with quite a bit more experience than I in the realms of usability, information architecture and writing for the Web. I did pick up quite a few tidbits and ideas that I’d like to try out here in the coming months.
One of the first things I’d like to do is get a better idea of who my readers are. I’m hoping to construct a Asterisk* persona or two to use not only to help me make the site a better place for y’all but also to give a face to my audience. Well, that and I think it’d be fun. When I’m done I’ll be sharing them with you as well as anything I’ve learned.
To do this I need some help from you! I want to get an idea of who you are, why you visit the site, what you look for in Web content, what you like and dislike, etc. I won’t need any specifics. Usually this would be done in face to face interviews, but I think a virtual interview, or informal feedback, fits the spirit of what I’m trying to do with this site just fine.
So, if you want to help and be a part of this experiment either send me an email or reply to this post answering the following questions. Feel free to post anonymously but know that I’m not going to use any personal information for anything more than this experiment.
1. Tell me about yourself, in general. I want things like how old you are, what you do, tell me about your own site if you have one, etc. I don’t need specifics.
2. Tell me about how you use the Web. What for, how often, when, etc.
2a. What platform(s) and browser(s) are you on?
3. What are your favorite sites, what do you like about them? Where do you spend most of your time on the Web?
4. What are your least favorite sites and what don’t you like about them? Tell me about some things that annoy you on the Web.
5. What are some of you favorite Web articles, or specific blog posts you’ve read? What makes them good?
6. How did you find Asterisk*? How did you get here?
7. When was the first time you visited?
8. How often do you visit Asterisk*?
9. What do you like or dislike about this site?
10. If you could tell me to write about anything, what would it be?
Send me your answers in e-mail or just reply to this post.
Thanks in advance for your help. This should be a fun experiment that hopefully will end up making Asterisk* that much better.
Filed under: IA and Usability
Comments
1. James said:
1. 22, webdesigner and educator. www.ordinary-life.net
2. News, Research, Entertainment, Commerce… Heavy net user.
2a. Windows 2k and XP, IE6, considering moving to Pheonix. 60-80% of day (scary)
3. Lots of blogs, usually at least partly technical. The google news page is invaluable. See bookmarks on site for details
4. Anything without an RSS feed annoys me to no end. Anything not easy on my screen burned eyes. I HATE pixelsurgeons current look for instance.
5. I’m easy to please. Short posts with rare links are my fav. Commentary has to be very entertaining or useful for me to care a great deal.
6. Um.. referer or comment maybe? Not sure.
7. Unsure
8. When RSS is updated.
9. You seem like a smart, reasonable person.
Dislike: that AIM link doesn’t work with trillian in your contact info section.
10. If you could tell me to write about anything, what would it be?
Anything intranet and Screenshots!! I process visuals better then text at times.
Hope that helps.
Posted on April 4, 2003 05:02 PM | #
2. john said:
1. 36, married, father of two (5 & 4). IT Director for 1300 employee software company. http://www.johnsjottings.com where I ramble on about things like programming, blogging, movable type, books, food, etc. Pretty much anything that interests me.
2. News, research, technical support, entertainment.
2a. Mostly Windows XP or 2000, occasionally Mandrake Linux. Still mostly using IE, but I’ve got Phoenix, Netscape, Mozilla and Opera installed as well - usually using Phoenix when I’m not using IE for surfing.
3. My site, following links to others. ESPN, my.yahoo.com, CNN
4. Fonts that don’t resize. Pages that look OK on 800x600 but have tons of unused white space on 1600x1200. Pop-ups.
5. Pretty much anything by someone who writes well and on a topic that interests me.
6. From a comment on my website.
7. January 7th, 2003
8. At least Once a day
9. Clean look, proper font handling, good content.
10. Your intranet project
Cheers
Posted on April 5, 2003 04:15 AM | #
3. JMBR said:
1. I am 28 years old and am a Senior Web Designer for TNS (the 3rd largest market research company in the world). My personal space is in a bit of a redesign process right now and should be up next week. I am filling my content into the new structure and hoping that the new structure of my site will hold it all and be expandable.
2. I use the web for work primarily. However, living in Philadelphia while my friends and family like back in Detroit I use the web for email and blogging to keep them in the loop. I also love my job and love to check out the hundred of other folks who love their jobs and write about them like you do.
2a. At home I run OSX.2 Jaguar on a 3 year old G3 Powerbook Pismo. I use Safari browser as a default, but still need IE for certain sites that the beta browser doesn’t handle (or sites that can’t handle cross-broswer standards). At work I use a Dell something and use Opera as my default browser, but again use IE for testing and those pesky non-compliant sites.
3. My favorite sites are blogs and link sites like this that celebrate our work like Alternate, Antipixel, Australian INFront, Boxes and Arrows, Coudal Partners, Designologue, Digital Web, Dive Into Mark, Edward Tufte, Elegant Hack, Evolt, Harrumph, Hivelogic, Holovaty.com, ia/, idontsmoke, I Love Everything, Kottke, Newstoday, one.point.zero, Ordinary-Life.net, Playpen, Snowsuit, Squidfingers, Stereotypography, [Stop] Design, Subakt, Textism, Typographica, Webgraphics, What Do I Know?, Yewknee, Zeldman
4. I hate sites that are slow, do not have content, or personal sites that are too serious. Have fun!
5. I loved your intranet story. It feels great to know someone else went or is going through the same things I went and am going though. There are so many blogs that recycle the same stories on the web that just substitute their own joke over it and it gets boring. The Intranet Redesign post added content to your site that no other site has…
6. It’s been such a while, but it had to be from a link in someone elses blog. That’s one of the best things about this community is the viral way we get to know each other.
7. I can’t remember the first time I visited.
8. I’d estimate every other day… What I do is drag a folder of links in Opera over the Address bar and it loads all my favorites in tabbed windows and I go threw them all to see the updates. I also use NetNewsWire at home to read all my RSS feeds.
9. Keep up the good work. Just keep sharing more of your stories as a web geek. There are plenty of us out here who enjoy empathizing with ya.
10. It’s kind of a follow-up to my last comment. Right about what you know and experience and there is bound to be others who will undertand and enjoy. I also liked your Intranet Redesign articles because they were positive and informative and helpful…. more writing like that would not hurt.
Posted on April 6, 2003 09:55 PM | #
4. Jason Kirtch said:
1. I’m 22 years old, a web Designer for a small firm in San Antonio. I’m very passionate about the web and design, I’m also into music and one of my hobbies is making my own music and I’m looking at ways to mesh web design with sound and music. I love reading and movies and biking.
2. All the time. I usually hit all the Web design news sites and blogs. I also use ebay and amazon.
2a. at work Win 2k with IE and Mozilla, at home OS 10 with Safari.
3. My favorite sites are Zeldman, What Do I Know, k10k, surfstation, and the like. I like sites with a clean yet original design style and good content about music, art, design and web stuff.
4. Ugly sites and sites that don’t have anything interesting to say.
5. I like Zeldman’s style, it’s quick and easy to read, with lots of information
6. I followed a link on Webgraphics.
7. A few weeks ago.
8. Every few days to see if there is something new.
9. I like the design alot, it’s artsy yet newsy at the same time. I also really enjoy the commentary on Web design, etc. I like the way you write, it’s very down to earth and real.
10. More personal stuff, maybe some more on design, you seem to have a good style and lots of experience (I liked your Flash stuff alot, maybe more of that)
Posted on April 8, 2003 01:11 PM | #
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