Who are our website users and what do they want to do?

Those are the questions we are attempting to answer with the help of our web partner, Mighty. This week we got the first look at our User Personas and Scenarios. These are fictional “people” who have been created based on real-life audiences and needs. They will help us to make better informed decisions as we move forward with the content strategy, structure, and ultimately design of a new Hope website.

Within our 14 personas, we have four prospective students, a prospective parent, a current parent, two current students, a faculty member, a staff member, a prospective faculty member, a recent alumna, an older alumnus, and a community member.

All of these personas have many scenarios related to them. Some unique and some they share. For example these include: “Can I afford to go?”, “Could I play on the volleyball team?”, “What is the academic program like?”, “How do I pay my tuition bill?”, “How do I get involved on campus?”, “What are my options for studying abroad?”, “How do I share my department’s accomplishments?”, “Where’s that form again?”, “What would it be like to work here?”, and “What are my classmates doing now?”.

We’re still working on finalizing these personas, and once finalized we look forward to sharing these with the campus community as we work together on our larger web content strategy.