Have you ever wondered where the information comes from that we use to build user personas? If it’s not coming from the consumers themselves, how can we be sure we’re getting it right?

2. Climbing the Ladder
to Your Ideal
Audience
» Why Customer Values Matter

3. Laddering » Why Customer Values Matter
• Exercise
• Introduction
• Uncovering Your Target
Market’s Lifestyle & Motives
– Phase one: DO NOT WANT
– Phase two: DO WANT
• Examples & Closing

4. Exercise » Think of a medium or large
purchase you recently made

5. Introduction to Laddering
» Why should we do it?
• To understand
– What attributes are important
– What the customer loves about your product
– The underlying reasons why they would
purchase your product over another

6. Introduction to Laddering
» Which of following women can you more
effectively cater to?
A married woman
somewhere between the
age of 30 to 45 with a
college degree, a $50,000
yearly income, 2.6
kids, living in the Midwest
or Southeast and who is a
heavy user of your
product.
A mother of two who is
nervous about turning 40
soon, spends 50+ hours a
week at the office, is a
neat freak who considers
cleaning a hobby and
spends much of her
discretionary income on
items for her home

7. Introduction to Laddering
» What is it?
• Laddering:
a technique by which the
core attributes and values
that drive product users are
identified through a form of
in-depth interviews
• Prototyping:
molding the insights from
laddering interviews into
distinct and workable
descriptions of vivid
consumer segments.

8. Laddering » How Do We Do It?
• There are two things
about your audience
you need to know:
– Why they do not buy
your product
– Why they really do
buy your product

9. Phase one: DO NOT WANT
• How do you collect this information?
• What kind of things will be discussed?
• How many people do I need to talk to?
Laddering » How Do We Do It?

10. • How do you collect this information?
• What kind of things will be discussed?
• How many people do I need to talk to?
Phase two: DO WANT
Laddering » How Do We Do It?

11. • Channel your inner three-year-old
and ask “why” over and over, but do
it with genuine curiosity and frame it
properly.
Oh, you like wide-mouthed
trashcans?
WHY?
WHY?
WHY?
WHY?
Phase two: DO WANT
Laddering » How Do We Do It?

12. • Be aware of the flow of conversation.
Steer it, but don’t take total control
of it.
• The basic “do’s and don’ts” of
conducting any kind of qualitative
research are a given before designing
a laddering strategy
Phase two: DO WANT
Laddering » How Do We Do It?

16. Accomplishment
Accountability
Accuracy
Adventure
All for one & one for all
Beauty
Calm, quietude, peace
Challenge
Change
Charity
Cleanliness, orderliness
Collaboration
Commitment
Communication
Community
Competence
Competition
Concern for others
Connection
Content over form
Continuous
improvement
Cooperation
Coordination
Creativity
Customer satisfaction
Decisiveness
Determination
Delight of being, joy
Democracy
Discipline
Discovery
Diversity
Dynamism
Ease of Use
Efficiency
Enjoyment
Equality
Excellence
Fairness
Faith
Faithfulness
Family
Family feeling
Flair
Freedom, Liberty
Friendship
Fun
Generosity
Gentleness
Global view
Goodwill
Goodness
Gratitude
Hard work
Happiness
Harmony
Health
Honor
Human-centered
Improvement
Independence
Individuality
Inner
peace, calm, quietude
Innovation
Integrity
Intelligence
Intensity
Justice
Kindness
Knowledge
Leadership
Love, Romance
Loyalty
Maximum utilization
(of time, resources)
Meaning
Merit
Money
Oneness
Openness
Other's point of
view, inputs
Patriotism
Peace, Non-violence
Perfection
Personal Growth
Perseverance
Pleasure
Power
Practicality
Preservation
Privacy
Progress
Prosperity, Wealth
Punctuality
Quality of work
Regularity
Reliability
Resourcefulness
Respect for others
Responsiveness
Results-oriented
Rule of Law
Safety
Satisfying others
Security
Self-givingness
Self-reliance
Self-thinking
Sensitivity
Service
(to others, society)
Simplicity
Skill
Solving Problems
Speed
Spirit, Spirituality in life
Stability
Standardization
Status
Strength
Succeed; A will to-
Success, Achievement
Systemization
Teamwork
Timeliness
Tolerance
Tradition
Tranquility
Trust
Truth
Unity
Variety
Well-being
Wisdom