The document discusses audience definition and segmentation for design purposes. It begins by emphasizing the importance of thinking of users as real people and understanding their personalities. It then introduces the Five Factor Model (FFM) personality traits as a framework for understanding users. The document provides examples of how to group individuals into segments based on their connections to a case study organization. It also demonstrates cross-segmenting roles based on mental models like "Just want to get something done." Finally, the document discusses creating personas by mapping individuals' personalities and looking for patterns to represent common user types.

1. Step 1. Audience Definition & Segmentation

2. Understanding People (Basic Personality Psychology)
It may seem obvious, but we really do need to start by thinking of our ‘users’ as real people.
Using personality psychology, we can understand where people are different, what makes them
similar and generally visualise them to help humanise them for design purposes.
A good place to start is with personality traits - One of the most established and respected ‘trait
theories’ is that of the Five Factor Model (FFM) – aka ‘The Big Five’, pioneered by Lewis Goldberg.
Openness Conscientiousness Extraversion Agreeableness Neuroticism
The tendency to be the tendency to be the tendency to be the tendency to be the tendency to be calm,
imaginative, independent, organized, careful, and sociable, fun-loving, and softhearted, trusting, and secure, and self-satisfied
and interested in variety disciplined vs. affectionate vs. retiring, helpful vs. ruthless, vs. anxious, insecure, and
vs. practical, conforming, disorganized, careless, and somber, and reserved. suspicious, and self-pitying
and interested in routine. impulsive. uncooperative.
Not convinced this is relevant? Remember that people fundamentally don’t change much and having a grounding in who your audience really are,
OUTSIDE of your own context will prevent you from ‘solutioneering’ – defining only the traits you feel you need or want. We’ll get to context later...
There are also other ‘trait theories’ you may want to explore, such as the HEXACO model. You could also use Type theory or other models, but we
have found FFM to be the most simple and practical in day-to-day use. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_psychology

3. Grouping individuals together
Case Study: British Heart Foundation
Professional Need Personal Connection Proxy Relationships
Doctor (GP) Heart Patient (Recent) Volunteer
Heart Nurse Heart Patient (Medium/Long Business
Term) Manager/Executive
Intermediary (Teacher) At Risk Adult Shop Customer/Donor
Researcher (Funded) Concerned Relative Event Participant
(Health) Journalist Grieving Relative Support Group Member
15 distinct end-users (min)
Arranged into 3 logical groups; 5 per group to give balance (and avoid bias)
Potentially other logical groups could be used…
these are based on their connection to the BHF

4. Cross-segmenting roles: By mindset (mental modelling)
Case Study: British Heart Foundation
Just want to get Not sure what to Keen to get involved… Willing to be
something done… find/expect… convinced…
Doctor (GP) 
Heart Nurse  
Intermediary (Teacher)   
Researcher (Funded) 
(Health) Journalist  
Heart Patient (Recent)  
Heart Patient (Medium/Long Term) 
At Risk Adult  
Concerned Relative    
Grieving Relative   
Volunteer   
Business Manager/Executive  
Shop Customer/Donor  
Event Participant   
Support Group Member  
Weighting 9 9 6 8

5. Segmentation: From 15 users to 4 Personas
Case Study: British Heart Foundation
Just want to get
Pragmatists
something done…
Not sure what to
Seekers
expect/find…
Keen to get
Activists
involved…
Willing to be (potential)
convinced… Conformist

6. • Use a sliding scale to map out
each persons personality
• Look for similarities,
differences and patterns
Personality Profile
Meet John…
Open to experience
• Finance Director at ACME Ltd
Cautious
•
Curious
50-55 years old Conscientiousness
• Married, with two children (15 and 18 year old
girls) Careless Efficient
• Lives in Hertfordshire Extraversion
• Drives a BMW 5 Series Touring (company car) Introvert
Agreeableness
Extrovert
• Shops at Sainsbury’s
• Uses a Blackberry and a Windows Laptop Antagonist Cooperative
• Understands the basics of LinkedIn, but decided to Neuroticism
skip the Facebook and Twitter hype; feels
irrelevant Nervous Confident
• Watches BBC News, Downton Abbey and classic
Bond movies
Who is your audience and what kind of people are they?

7. Step 2. User Story, Goals & Objectives

8. Understanding Goals & Objectives
Goals Objectives
Long term, unstructured, difficult to measure Short term, well defined, measurable
“We need to improve efficiency across “We want to reduce our overheads
the clinical team” by 20% over the next 2 years”
“We need to stay ahead of our “We want to increase our market
competitors” share by 10%”

9. • Feel free to adjust the user
profile to suit your context
• Keep them broad and cross all
users; don’t target individuals
User Profile
Johns story (in his own words)
Propensity towards goal(s)
I’m proud of where our company has gotten to following the loss of major
contracts in the recession and an internal restructuring after merging with a
competitor. Now I want to use our strong position to ensure maximum Not bothered Highly Motivated
profitability and be prepared for any future economic uncertainty. Propensity towards objective(s)
…and in our words… Not bothered Highly Motivated
Internet Literacy
John is very proud of his company and he appreciates that he has skilled
staff but he wants to achieve more through the current set of resources.
Low High
John keeps an eye on administrative and business tasks, like payroll,
invoicing, project resources, yet leads the company in major strategic Brand Awareness/Loyalty
decisions. It is critical for him to achieve better tracking and management
of resources. At the same time, he wants to streamline their admin
processes to allow employees to focus more on clients’ projects. John feels Not influenced Brand Loyal
their existing HR systems don’t allow them to efficiently extract the Financial Attitude
intelligence from previous work and he strongly believes that a mechanism
to share and “exploit” previous knowledge would boost the company.
Frugal Thrift
Customer Stage
• Goal(s): Leverage the internal potential we have in our team
• Objective(s): Track employee efficiency on projects and identify areas for
improvement; along with ROI from change management Cold Prospect Loyal Customer
Pick somebody from your audience and give them a story