User Personas: What Are They and Why They Matter in UX Design
A user persona is a fictional character that represents your target audience. Although a user persona is not a real person, it’s based on data and facts obtained through real-life interviews, surveys and other forms of user research.
When designing a product it is key to have and understand what your potential users look like. Creating a user persona is an effective way to gauge a target audience, gain a better knowledge of what my users’ needs or pain points are, and most importantly it makes the product feel more real.
Effective user personas are not made for what you think your audience is. They use real data obtained from reliable sources. It is very difficult to make personas without putting your own biases into them to make the product move in the direction you are hoping. For my personas, I going to use data I have collected from surveys as well as what I have heard from people in my own experience.
The benefits of doing this mean I can make smarter decisions regarding my product on what course of action to take. For example, focusing on a particular feature that users found very beneficial. It can also help to communicate your idea to people using real-life scenarios.
Since my product is designed for golfers, I need to look at all types of user in the golf industry.
Tour players are elite golfers who need to perform at their best every time they tee the ball up. A device that could give them slight improvements and more consistency will provide a massive advantage over their opponents. The product I am planning to design will be small and compact, which will be perfect for a tour player traveling around the world.
Golf coach are always looking for innovative ways to provide a better service to their students. Over the last 10 years there has been a massive shift in how lessons are given. People now expect to be using a swing monitor as part of the lesson. This give more indepth information than the human eye can tell. This information helps golf instructors pin point what exactly the problem is and provide a solution based on their training. The main issue is that these devices are incredibly expensive and majority of coaches can afford them. A device that could provide a similar sort of service would be greatly beneficial. One of the features I was thinking of developing was essentially a mimic mode. The user would tap the watch and record the motion that they make. Next, the user would make another stroke however this time the user will get feedback in the form of vibrations to tell them that the club is moving on a different path to the stroke recorded previously. I think this will greatly help players feel what they are supposed to be doing because having a consistent and correct feeling of movement is hard to sustain over a long period of time. This would be perfect for lessons and reinforcing what a student has learnt.
Amateur golfers are always needing help in every aspect of golf. Unlike tour pros, we don’t have the luxury of working with coaches 24/7. Time is very precious to us and we need to use it in the most effective manner. Having a device that can reinforce what you are working on, or something to focus your energy on a particular area that could be hindering your performance, will be very valuable. Once users can see the improvements, they will regularly use the device and build up confidence which will improve their putting.