Datasheet

In fact, the best place to start working on your persona is probably the narrative, or the persona’s biogra-
phy. This is the meat of the persona, and is where the credibility of this virtual user is established. If you
have a gift for embellishment, this isn’t a bad time to flex those creative muscles. While you might want
to communicate your persona’s lack of technical expertise (and, in doing so, remind the developers that
your users aren’t especially Web-savvy), try to think up a few fictional details about his or her life:
❑ Is your persona married?
❑ Does your persona have any children?
❑ What about hobbies? Perhaps your persona is a cigar aficionado, reads avidly, or was president
of his or her high school chess club.
All of these details might seem superfluous when your project deadlines are looming, but this extra level
of creativity can help your persona leap off the page and into the forefront of your mind while you’re
planning your site.
Once you’ve completed the narrative, add the finishing touches that will complete the picture:
❑ Name. A real name, such as Nathan, Molly, Jon, and so on.
❑ Age. The age of your persona.
❑ Work environment. What kind of computer does your persona use in the office? How fast is his
or her connection to the Internet?
❑ Technical frustrations. What does your persona find difficult about working online? What
makes him or her want to close her browser window in sheer frustration?
❑ Photo. A photo.
Ideally, your personas should be around one to two pages long, chock-full of important details about
your users’ needs, as well as those personal details that make the personas come alive. That said, there is
no hard-and-fast rule to determine when you’re finished working on your personas. Most projects will
benefit from a relatively small number of personas; popular opinion ranges anywhere from two to seven
personas. Ultimately, you are the best judge of your project’s specific needs. By better understanding
your audience, you can then begin to assess the second most important part of your site: its content, and
how your users should access it.
Information Architecture
For a moment, take a look at this book that you’re holding. It comprises several hundred pages, each of
which might contain a few dozen (we hope worthwhile) concepts. Now, were you presented with all of
those ideas printed on one huge piece of paper in a random order, you’d likely ask the bookseller for
your money back. There is no way that you could easily find any information on CSS, and this book
would be utterly useless to you. Thankfully, you’re spared that experience. At every stage of the book’s
development, there has been a constant attempt to bring order out of this conceptual jumble, on levels
both large and small. The goals of the book were established, and then the topics that the book needed to
cover were outlined. From those general topics came chapters, and within each chapter came section
outlines and headings.
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The Planning and Development of Your Site
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