Persona's

Phil Batty from Force-7 came in to give us a talk and Sally asked us to look at how he introduced himself and what was he wearing and look at his body language when he talked. We had to write our findings down and from this create a persona on him. Following up from Phil Batty's visit I contacted him asking if me and my colleagues could go in and talk to him one on one and ask himsome questions. I thought this would be a good idea if we had to write a persona on him and he agreed that we could go in.

We all wrote a list of questions to ask Phil Batty which he answered and from his answers we each did our own persona on him.

Here's my persona on Phil Batty

Name: Phil Batty

Occupation: Director of Force-7

Age: 20

Gender: Male

Location: Hull

Traits & Attitudes

Phil is the director of Force-7 marketing and communications agency

based on High Street in Hull. Force-7 offers a wide range of services which include graphic design, strategy and research, street team activity, consultation and social media management. The staff range from 16-24 years old.

Their target audience is marketing managers who get into jobs early they are aged between 30-40 years old and are interesting people. They have a reasonable budget and they are professional and not based locally. This is the type of client they aim at.

His Goals

• Phil's goals are for his company to be the leading youth marketing agency in the words of Phil himself "to be the best out of the rest".
• Phil wants to try and change the way people look at youth marketing.
• Their target audience is marketing managers who get into jobs early they are aged between 30-40 years old and are interesting people. They have a reasonable budget and they are professional and not based locally. This is thetype of client they aim at.
• His five year plan is for the company to be working on niche brands in six months. Then within a year working for them out right and then he would like to bring in 5 heads of departments to help him out. In five years time Phil would like to have left Force-7 and be working in social care.

His Needs

• Phil's needs for his company are to increase the skill level of his staff and make sure they recruit the right people.
• To expand the company he needs to plan and invest in the right people and take some risks along the way to sell the portfolio to the client.

I also did a persona on myself which is below:

Name: Chris Dunn

Occupation: Web Design Student

Age: 35

Gender: Male

Location: Hull

Traits & Attitudes

Chris is currently studying in his 2nd year of three on a BA Hons Degree Web Design course at the Hull School of Art & Design. Chris already as a Degree in Graphic Design that he gained back in 1998. He has chosen to back to university and study Web Design to further his career aim has a Graphic/Web Designer in the future. Chris uses the internet a lot for study and leisure time.

In his spare time Chris likes running and he has ran the London Marathon 10 times to date. Chris is also a big fan of Hull City Football Club where he is a season ticket holder. He also likes to go out with his mates and likes going to the cinema. Chris's favourite place to go on Holiday is New York he loves it there.

His Goals

• Chris wants a website that shows off his talents as a graphic/web designer to prospective employers.
• Chris wants to show all the work he has done whilst at university on his site.

His Needs

• The site needs to be easy to navigate around
• The site needs to showcase his work and reflect his personality.
• The site doesn't want to be too busy.

Client Related Practice for Web Design

Professional Practice

In a few brief paragraphs research and describe in your own words how you would tackle each of the points below.

• Communication of Ideas
• Presentation Skills
• Generating Ideas
• What Design Means
• Project Planning

Communication of ideas and concepts

How to put your ideas across by communicating them and your concepts to others so they remember them. First think how you are going to get your idea across are you going to show your ideas/concepts on paper. Or are you going to show something or get other people involved to put your idea across or will you say something.

• Create a concept story
• Create a concept map
• Communicate with visuals
• Communicate with help from others
• Communicate by saying something

Presentation Skills

There are three things you should do when you make a presentation. The first of these is using visual aids when appropriate. Visual Aids help you achieve your goals and objectives without boring the people you are presenting too. Research as been done that shows how people take in information during a presentation. Research shows that during a presentation we only take in 7% text. Compare this to 55% visual aids and 38% speaking. So when doing a presentation make sure you include some visual aids whether they be pictures, graphs, tables or props. Don't make your presentation all text because your audience will lose interest.

Always be prepared for your presentation don't turn up and forget what you are going to say. Its a good idea to rehearse your speech out loud a few times before you do your presentation. Also before the day of the presentation rehearse it in front of family and friends and get their feedback. I did this when I was best man at my Brothers Wedding and it helped me conquer my nerves because I had rehearsed it out loud in front of people before hand.

If your presentation as to fit within a time frame make sure it is not too short or too long. A good way to do this is time yourself so you know how long your presentation will be.

Most of the time your audience will only remember three things from your presentation. This is known as the rule of three because we tend to only remember 3 things. So when writing a presentation make sure you plan the three main messages you want to get across. Once you have these structure your presentation around them so they are the main content of your presentation. Also have a beginning, middle and end to the presentation.

Generating Ideas

Generating ideas can be easy and hard it all depends on what you are generating ideas for. Don't just come up with one idea come up with as many as you can. Always jot down your ideas on paper as soon as they enter your head. I find writing down words that are associated with the company, business etc work. Also drawing visuals on layout paper or in a sketchbook help me come up with ideas.

For instance when I was working in Design I had to come up with corporate id's for clients. I used to write a list of things associated with their business/company down on paper as a starting point. From them I would draw out ideas for their logo, corporate id on paper. I would also research the company to see what they did because if you don't know anything about them how are you going to create a corporate id for them.

What Design Means

For me design means the following:

• Design is a way of communication
• Design is creating something and bringing it to life
• Design is something that is pleasing on the eye
• Design is all around

Project Planning

Project planning is a way of showing how you intend to work on the project from beginning to end with in a deadline. Have a checklist of things you need to do in a certain time frame and tick them off as you do them. Then move onto the next stage and do the same again so you know what you've done and what still needs to be done.

References

http://www.wisdump.com/design/what-design-means-to-me

http://www.presentationmagazine.com

http://ideacommunication.org

http://www.wakeupcloud.com/generate-ideas