Customer Personas vs. Modes

[Posted by David Card]

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I started thinking again about "personas" vs. "modes" during a discussion this morning with David Schatsky about James McQuivey's keynote speech. I work for a company that has a big investment in customer segmentation schemes, and I'm a true believer, especially in those that account for attitudes as well as behavior. However, I freely acknowledge that a persona or segment can only go so far, and that human beings are flexible things. For instance, while I might behave most of the time like an aging urban yuppie, at least twice a year -- near Christmas and Mothers' Day -- I shop like a suburban mom.

So what does this mean when you're designing sites, products & services, and marketing campaigns? It probably means you have to develop a persona taxonomy flexible enough to accommodate modes, or blend with a task-oriented approach. Your brand may cater towards certain types, segments, or personae, but it has to be able to handle them when they're switching modes.

I haven't really formulated a system or framework for thinking about this balancing act yet. So let's start the conversation.

Comments

[Gahlord]

I think it's probably an apples and oranges thing. Maybe translated into a variation on the Punnett square we could find some actionable information.

Persona A will, at some point find himself in Mode I and at another point will find himself in Mode II. In both Modes, he will still retain his traits as a Persona A but will be expressing them through the style of interaction while in Mode I or Mode II.

Similarly Persona B will also find herself in Mode I or Mode II now and then. But her approach, needs, desires will be influenced by her Persona B-hood.

Perhaps Persona A and B will have preferred Modes. But that isn't to say that Persona A will only use the search form and Persona B will only browse. Both personas will likely browse or search depending on their situation.

Just a first stab at this. Great topic!

[Jon Gibs]

Interesting post Dave.
You might want to think about the way that an ad network like Mindset Media (mode targeting) would work with more segment based targeting scheme (Claritas etc).
There are some good models working here in ad targeting. Although it remains to be seen how well that would work from a site specific standpoint.
There is another element to consider, and that is that we tend to think of some types of segments being fairly static. However, there is good reason to believe that there is a whole big world where the time frames are never "life time" based and are rather all temporary. The thing you care about is how temporary and how overlapping, they are - think of the scheduling window in an outlook invite.

[John Wall]

For most products aren't you going to find less than 4 personas being in less than 3 modes? It seems like a waste to get too complicated since those modes will overlap across the personas and will any organization be able to handle more than 5 or 6 possibilities?

[David Card]

That 4 by 3 or so mix sounds about right.

[Patrick John OMahony, Sr]

To Mr. David Card]

About your post: NOVEMBER 11, 2008, Customer Personas vs. Modes

Yes, I follow Forrester and try to read all their reports. I have always thought
that their classification of users was "off the target". In my spare time I have
been collecting other peoples names for the users and what the users do.

I recently saw an article by Avelet Noff (blonde 2.0 fame) at

http://thenextweb.com/2008/05/24/why-people-participate-in-online-communities/

The article is about a presentation of her friend Yaniv Golan, CTO of Yedda.

It has some new names and some good insights.

If you come across any new names or descriptions of users or the functions of users, please share them with me.

Patrick John
patrick.omahony@gmail.com
Patrick OMahony
1506 Versailles Drive
Richardson, Tx. 75081
(972) 690-3611

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