Persona #1

This is Julie. She is 28 years old and a college graduate, with a master’s degree in art. She is a single girl living in an urban area of St. Paul. Her neighborhood is fairly diverse, but is mostly young singles and couples. She likes living in the city for now, but longs for a more secluded residence in the future. She currently rents an apartment but hopes to someday own a house, so that she can have a yard for her two dogs, Picasso and Daisy, who are pretty good at being wild and crazy when stuck indoors. She likes hiking and swimming and getting away from the city when she can, but she just started her own jewelry design business and doesn't have much free time these days. She doesn't find time to date, but has many close friends.

She’s obviously the artistic type. Free-spirited and independent. She’s also outgoing and positive, but can be a perfectionist when it comes to her jewelry-making. She believes in making the best product that she can and doesn’t like to limit herself in terms of spending. She is currently in the middle-class but starting her own business has put a pretty large financial weight on her shoulders. She’s not the most financially-savvy person in the world, which is why her older brother, who is an accountant, is helping her with the business side of her company. He will never be able to make her buy cheap supplies for the business, but he has taught her to look for bargains and to create a budget to stick to.

Julie is definitely action-oriented. She always likes to be busy and is willing to take risks. Starting her own company at such a young age was definitely risky, and she has gone through some rough times, but she sticks to her goals.

She has recently become a skilled computer user. Her skills began to blossom when she started her business and needed to build a website. Having little money, she undertook the venture herself and taught herself many useful skills.

Julie likes to know what’s going on in the art world, especially in terms of festivals that might be going on in her area. She frequently searches newspapers and magazines for these sorts of events.

Currently, Julie runs the majority of her business out of her apartment. She purchased a new computer about a year ago, in order to more effectively run her business online. A new digital camera (used for taking pictures of her jewelry for the website) was also purchased, and a copy of Photoshop.

She uses the internet for work purposes, but also to find out about art shows and festivals. Email and instant messaging are other important features she utilizes.

Twincities.com is a site Julie used to use to look for local art exhibitions, but gave up on the site due to lack of information and unreliable search options. Looking to expand her business through advertising, Julie has considered using the site to advertise on, but has thus far avoided it, choosing the Minneapolis/St. Paul Star Tribune instead. She started reading the startribune.com’s art section and found it much more comprehensive than twincities.com. She has very little loyalty to twincities.com because the calendar search function rarely works on her computer and the startribune’s calendar search has always worked for her.

Julie wants a news site that allows her to learn and do. She wants to be able to read articles about local artists and exhibits and be able to search for art shows in the area.

Julie usually spends several hours a week by herself looking for art news and upcoming shows in town. She has no accessibility issues.

Julie is important to the site for several reasons. She is a previous user who grew frustrated with the content and design of the entertainment section of the site. The calendar search option did not function well for her and so she moved her search over to the Star Tribune site instead. The flaws experienced by Julie are most likely experienced by other users and the site could benefit from improving them. The site also lost a potential advertiser. Because she found the Star Tribune to be more functional, she first chose to advertise with them. If twincities.com improved some of their features, they may draw Julie back to the site and she may reconsider advertising with them.