Website Musts:

How to Define Everything That Your Website Needs to Do

Drupal Day #16NTCDrupal

Presented by Anne Stefanyk, CEO - Kanopi Studios

Defining Your Audience

● Who is this web/app for?

● Why will they use it?

● When will they use it?

● How will they use it?

● Why will they keep using it?

Uncover user segments

For [ target audience #1 ]

that [ cares about topic x],

[ this organization ] is a [ solution/product/service ]

that [ provides benefit y ].

Try different value statements

Value Statement:

“For young families who care about the health of

their children, ‘Community Gardening

Organization’ provides services and resources

that educate families to about healthy eating and

engages children and families in community

gardening activities.”

1. Families looking for an activity to do together.

2. Retired couples who want to volunteer together.

3. Families and individuals looking for ways to eat

healthy on a low income.

Audience Segment Examples

For families with school aged children, that are

looking for a way to volunteer together,

‘Community Garden’ is an organization that provides

opportunities for children to learn how to give back

while spending time with their parents and siblings.

Example value statement 1Families looking for an activity to do together.

For retired couples who are looking for a way to

volunteer together, ‘Community Garden’ is an

organization that provides opportunities for couples

to spend time together doing something that makes

a difference in the community.

Example value statement 2Retired couples who want to volunteer together.

For families who are looking for a way to eat fresh,

healthy food, ‘Community Garden’ is an

organization that provides opportunities for people

to help grow, harvest and enjoy food grown locally.

Example value statement 3Families and individuals looking for ways to eat

healthy on a low income.

User Personas

1. Represent a user group for your website.

2. Describe real people with backgrounds, goals, and values.

3. Express and focus on the major needs and expectations of

the most important user groups.

4. Describe user's expectations and how they're likely to use

the site.

5. Express common user concerns and objections.

This will aid in uncovering features and functionality.

Tips for Effective User Personas

Tactics to Create User Personas

What triggered the site visitor

to browse your site?

Example: A flyer sent home from child’s school with

information about gardening program.

Priority Initiative

What results or outcomes do they expect from

visiting your site?

Example: Information on dates and locations of

gardening events in their neighborhood.

Success Factors

What might prevent them from

achieving desired result?

Example: Current site is focused towards donations

and event information is hard to find.

Perceived Barriers

What criteria would the site visitor use during

their evaluation of your offerings?

Example: ease of finding time and location of events,

number of gardening events, ease of scheduling a

space for their family to participate.

Decision Criteria

What is the key factor that will trigger the

decision to act? What resources will they trust in

helping them make a decision to move forward?

Example: The child’s school is sponsoring a

gardening day through Community Gardening

Program so they will sign-up.

Conversion Path

1. Look at your Google Analytics.

2. Administer a survey.

3. Place a pop up.

4. Interview your audience.

Real Data Speaks Volumes

Source Demographic Data from “Audience Reports” in Google Analytics

Example User Persona

“I want to improve my children’s eating habits by

learning about healthy eating through gardening.”

Busy Bee Mom

Busy Bee Mom Age: 29-44 / Priority 45%

Lives in Berkeley, owns her home. Married with two grade school age children. College graduate. Works long hours as a paralegal.

Believes in healthy eating, struggles to cook for family during the week but makes sure family eats dinner together most nights. Children are in school or childcare most of the day and eat most meals at school. Parent has limited control over child’s food choices.

Anti-fast food but buys convenience foods at the market. Has guilt about not having more time with her children. Buys organic whenever possible and shops at farmers market on occasion.

User Stories

Establish your organizational objective, or the action you want users to take on your site.

Identify the objectives, needs, and desires of your users.

Designing the User Story

As a [type of site visitor] I need a way to [do

something] so that I can [benefit somehow].

Remember to follow the value statements

User Story Template

“As a parent of young children, I need a way to find

events in my neighborhood that will teach my

children about gardening.”

User Story Example

Defining Features

Features are the actions that your user needs to be able to take on the site.

Action: “Families need to be able to see a list of gardening events for children taking place in their neighborhood.”

Feature: An event content type that can be sorted by date, age range and geographic location.

What are Features?

Mapping user tasks by persona

❤

Finding the sweet spot between your organization’s needs, your users’ needs and your technical needs.

Getting what you need on your site

Questions?