Uptech Proto Persona & CJM

How many times have you asked yourself:

• "What problems are you trying to solve?"

• "Can your product help your customers achieve their Jobs-to-be-Done?"

• "Are you targeting the right audience with the right problems?"

It’s always easy to fall into the trap of working on your ideas in a silo and believe that you have a winning product ready for the market. However, most entrepreneurs who failed to validate their ideas with users have their startup dreams sliding into the abyss.

At Uptech we’ve come across many startup owners who are left disappointed when their ‘promising apps’ failed to impress the users. Yet, those that are sticking to conducting initial user research have a significantly increased success rate.

What is Proto Persona?

Proto personas differ from standard personas because they are based on a series of assumptions backed up by data. Creating this type of persona allows you to validate an idea quickly and effectively. You get a better understanding of your customer base without committing the extra time and effort it takes to create standard personas. Please take in mind, a proto persona is a live document, that you should update with the progress of understanding our target audience. After all, based on user testing and Target Audience interviews, a proto person should be turned into a Persona as a perfect reflection of your target audience.

How do you create a Proto Persona?

To create relevant and accurate proto personas, you need to:

• Step 1 - Brainstorm: Brainstorm the information you have gathered about the goals and motivations of your customers/users.

• Step 2 - Write down the user’s bio, needs & goals: Based on your brainstorm add a short bio, add their needs & desires, and add their behaviors.

• Step 3 - Create Identity: Give an identity to the persona or personas you have created - add a photo, name.

What is a Customer Journey Map?

Let's start by saying that a customer journey map is a record of user interaction with your product. The map measures this journey from the user's or customer's point of view. Every touchpoint along the way is measured on the map.

Examining a journey map for your product helps you to understand the user experience fully. This can help to show you how successful your product is at solving the problem that customers have. But don't forget to update your customer journey map while discovering your target audience.

How to do create a Customer Journey Map?

To create relevant and accurate Customer Journey Map, you need to:

• Step 1 - Create a Proto Persona: Choose the "hero" of your map. Prepare an overview of your persona: short bio, needs, desires.

• Step 2 - Write down Scenario: Next, prepare the scenario of your persona. It should focus on the experience itself and the specific situation the journey map addresses and answer to the user's goal.

• Step 3 - Add action, thoughts, emotion: Add actions (actual steps taken by users), thoughts (about what user thinks), and emotion (emotional "ups" and "downs" of the journey) the user has within the user’s journey.

• Step 4 - Think about the phases of a user's journey: Group the actions into high-level stages in the journey - phases.

• Step 5 - Write down opportunities: Prepare opportunities within each phase - gather insights of the journey, that will help to improve the user experience.