Completeing the group project of generating a persona was an interesting example of the creative process at work. Normally, I am not too excited about teaching techniques that my instructors use. They are often too far removed from the content, or the information that is trying to be conveyed is not complicated enough to warrant such a project. The persona project, however, was incredibly helpful in explaining each aspect of a persona and an interesting way to look at web audiences. 

Since we were required to create someone out of thin air, we simply came up with a name at random: Sara. Once we had this, I quickly typed her name into Google Image Search and pulled up a decent picture. We jotted down some quick facts about Sara: 22 years old, works part-time, lives on campus at ODU, single, etc. When we came to the description, something strange started to happen. 

Sara became a person. She had dreams, goals. There were aspects of our make-believe University Library site that could affect her life. We started thinking about how and why she would be using the site. Tutoring, studying, using computers and other facilities and it became apparent how site design should be tailored to her uses. We gave her some quotes that indicate exactly what she wants out of the University Library's website.

This project was extremely helpful in understanding audience and how different groups approach the web in much the same way: they want relevant content fast. Not just content that is relevant to the site, but relevant to themselves.

Sara

• 22 years old
  
• works part-time
  
• lives on campus at ODU
  
• single
  
• full-time student
  
• no children
  

Sara is a full-time college student in her senior year at Old Dominion University. She is working part-time at a Denny’s restaurant as a waitress to help pay for student loans. She is majoring in math and hopes to be a professor at ODU one day.

She tutors other students in math in the library. She often needs to coordinate schedules via email or Facebook, and she needs quick access to the library’s operating hours and which study rooms are available.

Sara’s parents live in Chesapeake, along with her younger, 17-year-old brother. She visits them when she can get away from her busy lifestyle, and of course, on holidays.

Sara uses the internet frequently to complete classwork, to communicate with professors and other students, and for socializing. She rarely searches the web for much more than information for assignments because she feels like she reads through enough of the web for her classes. 

Quotes

“I don’t want to know all about the library’s history, I just need to know when it’s open!”

“I wish I could reserve rooms and computers online. Instead I’m always surprised to find out all the computers are in use.” 

“The search box should be on every page. When I want to look up a book, I don’t want to hunt for the search box.”

Typical web tasks:

• Facebook
  
• Twitter
  
• Class information and submitting assignments
  
• Scheduling tutoring appointments
  
• Finding lyrics to songs
  
• Reading the news
  

Assignment by Blaine Brown, Joslin Phillips, Alexia Decker, Matthew Whitley, and Dan Ivory

My name is Blaine Brown. I am an English Major at ODU with a triple-emphasis in Creative Writing, Journalism, and Professional Writing.

My true goal is to write screenplays for television and movies. I am currently working on animating a cartoon all by myself. This is quite difficult because I cannot draw. I am using the brute force method of drawing where I just do it over and over again until it looks right. This is quite tedious at 24 frames per second.