Defining Users That Goes Against the Norm
I created these student personas in order to demonstrate the vast cognitive and physical changes that happen to students between the age of 4 and 18, and to know how to design with an understanding of those changes.
Our personas pull together demographic data from NCES’ 2019 report with dozens of other sources listed in the bibliography. I took that data, and divided each data point by 13 (K-12). That gave me an understanding of the family, regional, racial, and economic backgrounds that our personas needed to represent.
The persona document was capped off by an overview screen that pulled together the demographic data into points useful for software development and as a quick-reference of the state of education in the U.S. today.
Almost immediately, teams across NWEA saw the value in these persona documents and began incorporating the insights into their work.
The student profiles and the research you did to create them has been incredibly valuable. I’ve successfully used that research to make better design decisions, aimed specifically at early learners and their unique needs. Thank you for putting this together and getting it into the hands of those that are solving problems for the students that we serve. This is a game changer.
Director of brand strategy, nwea
Files
Link to the bibliography for the student personas (PDF). To view the personas or for more information about my process, please contact me directly.
