Defining the Internal User/Content Editor With A Persona Story

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User Persona

In our last post, we discussed the need for our marketing departments to create Persona Stories to build the representative fictitious Internal User/Content Editor(s) for which we will be designing the UX of any new website project. Here, we’ll outline the questions through which to build such a Persona Story. 

It’s important to remember that, especially in enterprise-level organizations, there may be more than one and even several Internal Users/Content Editors. There must be Persona Stories for each of them, if we’re to create an effective UX. To develop these pseudo-personality profiles/needs assessments, we need to ask a set of questions that will determine our direction.  

These include:  

  • Who are the users? – There might be more than one set. For example, in a healthcare setting, they might be:
    • patients and family members (End Users/Customers)
    • referring doctors (Internal Users, possible Content Editors)
    • nurses/clericals (Internal Users, Content Editors)
    • potential residents and fellows (External Users)

       

  • What are each of their needs, and levels of sophistication?

     

  • What are their skill sets regarding the Web or CMS?

     

  • What’s their frustration level with current Web tools?

     

  • What kind of time do they have available for content editing?

     

  • How will they need to interact? How can that interaction be scheduled or otherwise made consistent, able to be anticipated and fit in a workflow that’s as least disruptive for all parties as possible?

     

  • Do they have digital assets, or will those have to come from some other source
    • Copy
    • Will they be writing their own text, or will someone be doing that for them?
    • Will they be responsible for editing and proofing, or will someone else do that?
    • Will they be writing in a word processor and just providing files?
    • If they will be writing directly into the user interface of the CMS, they will need to focus on writing and ignore the tool.
    • Photos, Illustrations and Video Media
    • How many will be needed?
    • Do they need scale and crop tools internally, or do they have a graphics department to use?
    • If they use stock services, which ones?
    • Who will manage those accounts for access and payment?
    • Who will actually search for, find and download those images?
    • Audio Clips
    • What will audio be used for?
    • Who will provide it?
    • It will need to be edited and ready for uploading to the site. Who will make that happen?
    • Asset Management
    • What tool(s) will be used to place, store and archive digital assets?
    • In what location will the files be stored?
    • How will they be backed up?

This is really just a starting place. Every webdev project will have its own needs, and every developer will have their own process. But these are some basic points from which to launch your own.