More than just a persona: a life study of our users.
For a recent project with Cengage Education, I had the privilege of wearing multiple hats—researcher, interviewer, and designer—to craft detailed personas that encapsulate the needs, motivations, and challenges of our target users. This work was instrumental in ensuring the design and development efforts aligned seamlessly with the expectations of both students and instructors. By combining qualitative insights from interviews with strategic design principles, I aimed to discover findings that would empower the Cengage team to deliver more user-centric solutions in the education space.
My Role
User Experience Research and Design Consultant
Tools
Figma, Calendly, Recollective, Dovetail
Project Background
Cengage Education sought to deepen their understanding of their key user groups—teachers and students—through comprehensive, research-driven personas. I was brought onto this project for my expertise in user research, design, and meticulous attention to detail. Cengage recognized the need for more thorough and actionable personas that could serve as a foundation for designing and refining future products.
These personas were intended to go beyond surface-level insights, capturing the motivations, pain points, and behaviors of both educators and learners. By providing a clear, nuanced view of these user groups, the project aimed to equip Cengage with the tools to create more empathetic, user-centered solutions for the education space.
Process
For this project, the process started with creating a clear project overview and scoping out the work, making sure we understood the goals and what needed to be done. I worked closely with the team, keeping things aligned with regular checkpoints to make sure we were on track. We also took some time to review any previous personas to see what had been done before, using them as a starting point for the new research.
Next, I focused on crafting the right interview questions that would get us the deep insights we needed. I made sure to profile a diverse group of interviewees, selecting a mix of teachers and students who represented a wide range of experiences. With the interviewees lined up, we dove into the interviews, really listening and gathering data that would help us understand their motivations, challenges, and needs.
Once we had all the interview data, the next step was analyzing the results. From there, I identified key insights that would help shape the final personas. I then reported all of this back to the stakeholders, making sure they understood the findings and how these insights would inform future product development. Finally, I updated and refined the personas, making them as comprehensive and useful as possible for Cengage moving forward.
Execution
Executing this work required a mix of careful planning, communication, and attention to detail. I started by reviewing the existing persona work to align with the new project goals and refine the personas. This helped ensure we weren’t duplicating efforts and filled in any gaps.
Creating the interview questions was a key step, ensuring they were open-ended yet targeted to address our core areas of interest. Profiling the interviewees to form a diverse group was also critical to reflect the full range of teachers and students. Coordinating the interviews and analyzing the collected data was a major part of the process. It wasn’t just about summarizing answers but identifying patterns and insights that would shape the personas.
Once the research was analyzed, I worked on reporting the findings in a clear and actionable way for stakeholders. Throughout, collaborating with the team was essential to stay on track and aligned with the project goals. Altogether, the process required strategic thinking, research skills, and design expertise to create thorough and practical personas for Cengage’s future product development.
Analysis & Insights
The key insights and changes made to the personas were a direct result of diving deep into the research and uncovering nuances that hadn’t been fully explored before. One of the biggest revelations was the unexpected overlap between certain personas. While these personas were initially thought to be distinct, our findings showed they shared more similarities than anticipated, prompting us to rethink and adjust their designs to reflect this complexity.
We also discovered new layers of complexity within the personas themselves. Assumptions that guided earlier persona work were often disproven. For instance, the impact of external factors like COVID-19, the rise of remote learning, the rapid integration of AI, and the increasing cost of education reshaped the way many of these individuals approached learning and teaching. These shifts meant that education was no longer seen as a straightforward concept, and our personas had to reflect their evolving priorities, challenges, and attitudes toward these changes.
Ultimately, this new understanding enriched the personas by making them more accurate and representative of the real-world context. These updates ensure Cengage can design products that truly resonate with and meet the needs of their diverse audience.
Conclusion
This project was such a rewarding experience, combining in-depth research, thoughtful design, and a lot of teamwork to create personas that truly capture the changing world of education. The research team was thrilled with the results, praising the depth and accuracy of the insights, which was so great to hear after all the effort that went into it.
The design and product teams are equally excited to use these updated personas in their future projects, which makes all the work feel even more impactful. These personas are set to become a key resource for Cengage, helping them create better, more user-focused solutions that truly meet the needs of educators and students in an ever-changing landscape.