Free Webinar Recording: Ad Hoc Personas for Product Managers

I heart doing webinars. Though actually they are kinda weird...with an audience in front of me I can get good feedback and adjust accordingly. With webinars, I'm the only one visibly reacting to my jokes and puns, and that makes me much more nervous than standing in front of hundreds of people. But i digress.

Here's the blurb:

Personas can help you (and your entire organization!) transition from thinking 'about' users to thinking 'like' users. This can have a truly magical effect on your projects; personas can help you nail down your goals, prioritize features, and design delightful experiences. They can also synch right into you agile development process--or any development process, for that matter. As product managers, you are master translators: you translate between the languages of business, marketing, and development, and well-crafted personas create a common language that will help you do your job. The biggest problem with the method is that no one seems to have the answers to the practical questions we all have about creating and using personas. Tamara will show you her method for creating incredibly helpful, awesomely practical ad hoc personas that will actually work...all without you having to do any more research or spend any more money.

Here's the link to the recording: http://grandview.rymatech.com/2012/212-ad-hoc-personas-a-practical-approach-.html

And, it's FREE! Free as a bird! So why not? Sign up, sit at your desk, watch the show, shake your head sadly at the puns...it's a great way to spend an hour.

What happens if you don't use personas?

A potential client once asked me to write this up to help her convince the powers-that-be to invest in the project. Thought I'd share with all y'all.

Every website, product, or service should be built on a solid, shared understanding who your customers and users are and what they want and need. This is important, not only because satisfying customer goals equals making money, but also because focus on users enables diverse internal teams to communicate using a common language and make decisions that add up to effective products. Personas are ‘fake people’ and, in some cases ‘fake companies’; they are detailed descriptions of your key customers and users built out of your knowledge of your customers, your business objectives, and data.

What happens if you don’t use personas? Of course, that depends on the project, team, and company. But there are several key problems that personas solve particularly well, and these are problems that plague a huge number of technical projects and the teams who work on them. These problems include:'

• Wasting research money. Research is critical, and it can be expensive. Personas help you identify the questions you need research to answer, and how those answers will impact the design and development process. Without this clarity before the research is scoped and conducted, you run the risk of collecting ‘findings’ that don’t answer your most important questions.
• Under-utilizing research. When you do collect helpful data, it’s not easy to communicate the key findings in a way that helps your team make better decisions. Personas capture key research findings in a way that’s ‘digestible’ to everyone working on a product.
• Lack of clarity. The persona creation process forces key stakeholders to clarify their business, brand, and customer experience goals, and value propositions and differentiators, very early. These conversations can be difficult and contentious, but without the clarity that comes from them, there’s no chance of helping everyone on a design and development team understand what the business needs them to do. Clarity at the start of the process helps you avoid big surprises once you start designing and prototyping, including the ‘this is all wrong! change everything!’ surprises that many product teams encounter after they are well into the process.
• Lack of a common language. Clarity is one thing; communication is another. Personas translate ‘business-ese’ into a shared language that everyone can understand and buy into. For example, telling a developer that new software has to ‘cut our costs by 60%’ isn’t particularly helpful; telling her that ‘Arnold After-Hours is costing us $4MM in customer service every year, so we absolutely have to make his experience better’ is helpful.
• Equating marketing and product design. Marketing is all about getting people to a product; personas are all about moving those eyeballs around after they arrive. Marketing should be highly involved in persona creation, but the personas should be built to capture the goals and needs of people who actually use a product. Driving product decisions based on marketing insights can lead to major user experience issues.
• Playing follow-the-leader with the competition. Everyone thinks the other guy, or the bigger guy, has done tons of research and made smart design decisions. Usually, this isn’t true. After you create personas, you can take a very fresh look at the current experiences available for your key customers; this is incredibly eye-opening and allows the team to think creatively. Personas allow you to use your competitors effectively: you’ll know what they do that works well, and what to avoid like the plague.
• Random feature prioritization decisions. Assigning weights to personas according to how each will help the company achieve the business goals enables the team to make well-informed, consistent decisions when it comes time to ‘triage.’
• Finished products that solve half the problem for lots of people. Of course, all the personas are going to be important to the business. However, you can’t do everything for everyone all at once. Without personas, many teams try to include a little bit for everyone, and the final product suffers.

If you build it, and they come, so will money.

Awesome interview in Fast Company today with Jeremy Levine of Bessemer Ventures on why they decided to invest in Pinterest--even though there's no clear monetization strategy:

How does a "product-related, user-generated" media company like Pinterest make money?

There are no specific ideas or projects in the works. Much to the Pinterest team's credit, they subscribe to the Facebook theory on how to build a really valuable business: You don't worry about [monetization] for a while. You focus on one and only one thing, which is building a product or a platform that consumers love to use over and over again. If you have a rabid fan base among consumers, eventually you'll have so many ways of monetizing it that you just don't worry about that.

In fact, if you focus too early on how to make money off of something like this, then you start to build features designed to cater to the paying constituents, like businesses, brands, advertisers, at the expense of building more and more great stuff for consumers. The chance that you overextend your consumers' patience by not doing the things they want, and ultimately turning them off and having them abandon your product, is quite high.

So until you feel super-confident that you've got a really durable relationship with your consumers, it just makes no sense to focus on the monetization.

Of course, you've got to have enough money to have the luxury to not think about money, but he makes a great point. And I love the statement that happy users inevitably = lots of ways to make moola. Nail it for the customers first (or pin it, in this case), and you'll get a bunch of happy eyeballs. Happy eyeballs = lots of ways to make money, because so many people want time in front of happy eyeballs. Oh and by the way, if you own the happy eyeballs, it's then your job to protect their happiness. Meaning, you tell advertisers how they are allowed to advertise:

• No, you can't do a big annoying banner, because we won't let you.
• No, I don't approve that design.
• No, you can't offer that to our users if there's nothing in it for them. 

Again, remember: be inspired by Amazon's ads. They've managed to create ads that look, feel, and act like features: customers who bought this also bought is an ad that Amazon users love. Why can't everyone have that kind of standard?

The interview is a great counterpoint to last year's prevailing VC winds, in which you had to show traction in order to get money. So, in other words,  prove that you can do something worthwhile with no money at all, and then we'll give you money to do more. Fair enough, I suppose. But also kinda paradoxical. If you can get traction without money, why not just keep going? (Oversimplify much, Tamara? Why yes, yes I do. So sue me.)

The Peter Principle. Inescapable.

The Peter Principle. It's just so freaking true.

Here it is, according to wikipedia:

The Peter Principle states that "in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence", meaning that employees tend to be promoted until they reach a position at which they cannot work competently. It was formulated by Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull in their 1969 book The Peter Principle, a humorous ^[1] treatise which also introduced the "salutary science of hierarchiology."

Full Article

And apparently they found an even earlier version:

The same experience was described as early as 1767 by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing in his comedy Minna von Barnhelm ... Translated from German to English: “To become more than a sergeant? I don't consider it. I am a good sergeant; I might easily make a bad captain, and certainly a worse general. People have had this experience.”

Funny that it's considered comical. It's only comical when you aren't the direct report of a Peter.

When you are the employee of a corporation, you (inevitably) will find yourself reporting to a Peter. An annoying, completely self-unaware, nauseatingly flaccid, thoroughly angry, defensive monument to passive aggressiveness. This person will be the perfect 'don't let this happen to you' posterchild for an imaginary campaign promoting therapy. And, if you're actually any good at your job, they will make your life hell.

It kinda makes sense actually. Want to know how they got to the position they have now? The one that they are drowning in, the one that makes them feel incompetent and out of control, the one that causes them to dig back to their own five-year-old selves for the appropriate responses to unexpected situations? I'll tell you. They were good at your job. The one you have right now, and are probably excelling at. They are noticing in you exactly the same traits that got them this new overwhelming job.

So there you are having your performance review and wondering "why is this person so completely insane? Why are they acting this way towards me? Am I actually really not very good at all? What did I DO?" And the Peter is sitting there feeling like this is an important time to be the manager he or she was hired to be. To manage. To manage you. So they're going to puff up, get the lighting right, and go for it.

Before you freak out and start questioning yourself, think for a minute about Peter's own performance review. Unless he or she is a Golden Peter (a topic for another day...this is my new name for the person who is so clearly a Peter, and everyone can see it...except, of course, the people who sit above said Peter), he or she just got (or is about to get) a pretty bad performance review him or herself.

Because they're not good at their jobs.

Because they were good at your job and got promoted to the level of their own incompetence.

See how that works?

The nice thing about Peters is that they are completely predictable, in the following ways:

• You will be fine at first, and excited to 'work for someone who seems so interested in helping you with your career, and protecting you from the craziness above' etc etc. Why? Because Peter feels fondly towards you and determined to be an awesome manager.
• You will continue to be fine until you not only notice, but actually point out, some inconsistencies or nonsensicalnesses of the Peter.
• You will eventually do something fairly good, work-wise. Interesting things will start to happen.
• Peter may subtly take credit for your work itself, or for your ability to do said work due to his or her marvelous management skills.
• Peter will make sure that you 'include me in meetings' with the higher up or peer, and talk about the strength of his or her own relationship, and reputation, with said people.
• Peter will have meetings with you in which he or she manages to compliment your work, criticize your manner of interacting with peers or superiors, intimate that great things are ahead of you and that he or she will help you get these great things, compliment their own management skills, suggest that you have a lot to learn, and suddenly get sickly sweet at the end of the meeting, leaving you with the vague feeling that you've just been poisoned with perfume.
• You may be the kind of person to push back and show some personal power. In this case, Peter will start to kiss your butt a bit and ask you if everything is ok. At which point the entire cycle will start again.
• You may be the kind of person to back off a bit. In this case, Peter will stay on the attack. Annnnd...repeat.
• And finally, the most predictable part: your life will never be fun again until you, or the Peter, change jobs. 

And why don't the higher ups do something about the Peter?

Because all too often, the Peter is beyond annoying in various ways:

• Peter needs too much handholding from Peter's boss, who may or may not be a Peter him or herself.
• Peter whines a lot.
• Peter blames things on his or her subordinates.
• Peter is generally not a fun person to have any kind of conversation with, especially any conversation related to his or her performance.
• But at the same time, there's nothing easy to point at regarding Peter's performance--so it's not easy to get rid of them. And if you tell the Peter that they aren't doing well, then you are just asking for more meetings with Peter. Which would suck.

So, instead of dealing with Peter, Peter's boss (your grandboss) will be a bit of a pussy. Which means he or she won't be much fun to work with either.

Delightful.

Want to do a quick self-check on whether or not you, yourself, might be a Peter?

If you have people who report to you, it's super duper easy. Just ask yourself one question and be really truly honest with yourself:

Am I kinda threatened by any of my people?

The trick here is to be really really honest. You don't have to say it out loud, so why not. But if you are feeling like any of your people are really great, and you feel a twinge of 'wow, he or she is really great at this...better than me in some ways,' you better do some more thinking and self-monitoring. Because there are two ways this can go.

1. You turn into a Peter
2. You remind yourself that everybody is good in different ways, that you did good enough (we hope) to get the job you have now and, perhaps most importantly, if you handle this right, you'll come out looking amazing. If you support this talent, and act like an umbrella (to keep the shitstorms off the team), and are happy and supportive and even step up to be the person to help build this person's visibility in your company, you'll become known as a great manager. The talented person will think of you fondly -- probably as the best manager ever, given how many future Peters are in his or her path -- and will act accordingly. You'll also keep your rep as good in your old job. It's kinda magical.

I guess the whole Peter principle is kinda comical, if you look at it the right way. The right way to look at it? That would be from your home office where you do your consulting from.

What the hell happened to that homepage?!

Why do so many home pages suck?

Simple answer: because it’s been a couple months (at least) since they were designed. 

Here’s what happens:

Awesome IA/UX/Design people collaborate in some combination to create a really nice home page template (or several templates). They get them approved. Marketing likes them and totally understands what creative assets they’ll get to create and use in the templates. Awesome IA/UX/Design people create equally awesome style guide, which looks very swanky and well organized. It is designed to look gorgeous when it’s printed out on portrait-oriented paper, preferably not of a standard size. It has the templates all marked up with annotations (in just the perfect color) detailing hex values and font sizes and leading and color palettes. It’s glorious. 

The home page looks great for a few months or so. The marketing team (or whoever is responsible for the creative assets on the home page) is sticking to the style guide—often because they were heavily (and rightly) involved in its creation.

And then…something happens.

If it's an ecommerce site, it could be a sale (and actually it often is). It could be a natural disaster that the company is helping out with. It could be some other project that takes up all the usual designer’s time and therefore requires that the creative be temporarily outsourced. Whatever it is, it’s treated as an exception, and it’s designed as an exception. And that one little exception changes everything.

Suddenly the whole visual vocabulary gets tilted just enough to murder that gorgeous style guide. Concrete blocks are tied to its tabloid feet and it’s never even seen again (until the next redesign, when someone asks to see it, and is surprised how great it is, given the current horrifyingness of the site).

It’s as if the style-guide-obeying boxes on the homepage start like a well-behaved collection of children, all playing nicely and using their indoor voices and attracting attention in the right way. And then, a new kid shows up, and, even if the new kid is well-intentioned, at least one of the originally happy little campers gets uncomfortable. Somebody’s little box shrinks a little, or there’s a new color in town, or whatever. The decibel level starts trending upwards as anxiety builds. And suddenly…everybody is screaming.

It’s hard to point to a home page that no longer maps to the original wireframes. But it’s equally hard to point to a home page that ages well (unless, of course, it never changes—but we’re talking ecommerce here, remember?). 

In fact, I would challenge you to find any designer who created and launched a redesign of an ecommerce site more than two months ago who still likes the home page.

Here's an example...

I was looking at the vandelay design blog -- which I found through a basic search for ecommerce design inspiration. They do a nice job with their posts...not just the one I reference here. They shared several examples of nice homepage designs (nice in their opinion...I'm not saying I agree with all of them, but still...). Anyways, the screenshots are from 2009, and some haven't been completely redesigned since then, and are therefore great examples:

LaSenza as an example of good design:

And...LaSenza today. Same great boobs, now with extra huge orange boxes:

What happened? A big important sale happened, causing a designer to lose his or her mind (and his or her color palette). Betcha the next sale has to yell even louder. Odd, given that the products probably tend to, ahem, sell themselves.

So, what’s the fix?

You simply can’t prevent ‘something’ from happening. Instead, I recommend that you build home page re-redesigns (or at least re-reviews) into your plan. Every time you change seasons or whatever, get the original design team together (yes, even pay the outsourced agency people! I mean really…) and take a look at the home page. You don’t have to redesign it again and again. You just have to re-establish the visual vocabulary and get it back on track. That’s easy…as long as you plan to do it and involve the right people.

If you've read this far, you may be interested to know that this rant is a preamble to a posting (or twelve) about the new trends in ecommerce design--and my psychic predictions to what's going to happen to all those

GINORMOUS FONTS.
Stay tuned.