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Environment Agency Personas Win ‘Intranet Innovation Award’
Personas developed by WUP for the Environment Agency recently won an ‘Intranet Innovation Award’.
We started work on the personas in November 2005 after winning a competitive tender for the project. In developing personas for its intranet, the Environment Agency hoped to prioritise customer goals. The idea was to understand the motivations behind customers’ behaviour, what they wanted from the site, and how they would use it. The Intranet Innovation Awards judges commended the resulting personas for “supporting the delivery of better intranet content and functionality” and bringing together information that “lacked focus and coherence”.
The target audiences for the intranet project were Environment Agency staff -specifically team administrators and members, team leaders, senior managers and area managers. During the research phase, we interviewed 28 intranet customers across these target audiences. The result was the creation of three specific personas - Nikki, new starter; Marcia, manager; and Owen, enforcement officer - with whom all user groups could identify.
The Environment Agency’s existing intranet wasn’t working for its customers. There was too much content, much of which wasn’t directly relevant to the users, so people tended to pick up the phone instead - defeating the purpose of an intranet that’s supposed to be self-serving! The development of the three personas, based directly on user needs and motivations, makes the resulting intranet easy to use.
To help with the adoption of the personas the Environment Agency produced a booklet that presented tasks and goals from the persona perspective. A put yourself in your customers’ seat strapline was used throughout. This was backed up with strong visuals that showed the personas’ work desks and described their key tasks and goals. A set of summary cards and a mouse mat for personnel, showing all personas, were also developed.
WUP subsequently worked on the Environment Agency’s website, for which it created five different internet personas to meet the needs of wider target audiences.
The main quality of our work recognised by the personas project and the resulting Intranet Innovation Award is the approach. We developed the personas after ensuring the ‘right’ research was undertaken to gain the necessary insights into the intranet’s users and their goals. We always try to gain a first-hand understanding of specific user groups - either by direct observation in research sessions or through video evidence shown at workshops.
Backing up our success with the award-winning Environment Agency project, WUP is working with the British Library, LSE and Avon & Somerset constabulary in the development of research-based online personas and improved information architecture.