About the Assignment
Design personas are an excellent way to “flesh out your [web site] design’s personality” (Walter, p. 35) and provide you with a clear aesthetic guide for how you want to look and, importantly, feel to users.
Walter discusses the Design Persona process on pages 35 – 47. On pages 36 and 37 he lists the key sections of a Design Persona. Download a copy of the Design Persona Template (.pdf), which adds additional features. Using the Template as a guide, create your own Design Persona for your web site (Walter includes this design persons for MailChimp (.pdf) as a sample).
You will see that the Design Personae has the following sections. Use the prompts in the template to guide your content as well as the updates/changes listed below:
- Overview: This is where you should be writing about what personality you want your site to have. Seamlessly include your Why statements from your homework. You can also think about a designer or celebrity whose aesthetic you’d like your site to represent.
- Brand Traits: Complete as described in the template.
- Personality Map: Complete as pictured in the template.
- Voice: Complete as described in the template.
- Visual Lexicon: Use the three sections in the template—Color, Typography, General Style Notes—but don’t just list the colors or the font. Include specific color swatches including the hex or RGB color codes. Include 2 sets of header and content font combinations, including sample content.
- Engagement Methods: Complete as described in the template.
In the past, students have also included mood boards, logos, and other design features to enhance their personas. Look back to the work you completed in Digital Aesthetics or one of Dr. Sullivan’s design courses and see how you have presented design ideas. Make the document aesthetically pleasing, as well.
Here are three examples for what you could do with your design persona (all samples used with permission). The first one is great, though it does not have the color samples and codes and font examples (which were not required in the past). The latter two have a design level that is is not required, but they give you an idea of what can be done with a design persona. Note that they are also missing either the hex/RGB codes and the font examples:
Due Date
Monday, 2/18: Bring TWO PRINTED copies of your persona to class