Part 1: Create some basic information about your user. Be creative (and feel free to use humor!), but think about who may potentially view this website (professors, reporters, editors, students, etc.).
Name: Troy Mitchell
Age: 64
Location: Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada
Education: Master’s
Occupation: Retired Lumber Mill Operator and Mechanic
Family status: Married, 0 Kids
Income: $95,000/yr
Hobbies: Fixing odds and ends, drinking a beer with friends, enjoying life
Tech experience: Good at fixing mechanics like cars and fridges, not so great with a computer
Part 2: Drawing from the demographic information above, craft a 4-8 sentence narrative about your user. Explain who they are and why they would use the website you are creating. Think of the following concepts:
- Tasks: What is your user trying do? What questions do they need to answer?
- Feelings: What matters most to your user?
- Influences: What influences how your user acts? This could be motivated by their job, education, age, technical experience, etc.
- Problems and goals: What obstacles might your user encounter, and what do they want to accomplish? In other words, “My user needs to do _____ because _____.”
Troy is a retired Lumber Mill Operator and Mechanic born in 1960 in Scottsdale, Arizona who wants to show his wife the songs he grew up with as Norway had a very different music scene. While he knows how to pull up Spotify, he has some difficulties finding an all encompassing playlist. He himself was too young to get involved with the protests and hippie culture, but his parents were firm activists during the time, so he grew up with songs ranging over decades about what was wrong with the world at the time. He finds a playlist that has plenty of songs from his childhood which also has a link to a project looking at these songs. Though he was not intending to, he goes down a rabbit hole into his childhood and his parents’ lifestyle while also learning plenty he didn’t know.
