Data-driven personas

Abstract

This report describes a graduation project carried out at Exact business software. The goal of the project was to develop data-driven personas for the accountancy team within the company. The previously used set of personas were based on intuition, which created a feel for what type of person to design for. This might be relevant for empathizing and designing, but not if decisions are based on them. Therefore, a data approach was needed. In this project the user activity in the software served as input for the persona creation to enhance more informed decision making. The creation of these personas was performed with the use of data analysis from a sample that contained 1725 users in 163 administration offices. These users performed around 400.000 clickstreams in three months. Two levels of clustering techniques were applied to retrieve similar usage behaviour. First, dominant tasks were grouped together into common workflows. Second, these common workflows were used to retrieve groups of users with similar usage patterns. As a result, the user types were different in the type of tasks they were likely to perform. To create a complete picture of these user types derived from the data analysis, additional user interviews were conducted that obtained qualitative insights. All pieces of information (data analysis clusters, qualitative insights, and existing knowledge) came together in a persona co-creation session with the accountancy team of Exact. After further interpretation of the research results, a new set of personas was created which contained empathy, data, and creative thinking. The accountancy team decided to replace the old personas with the data-driven ones. In other words, the team is now able to make more informed decisions and have a better understanding of their users. Next to software usage, additional information on how these users act when they do not use the software was explored during the user interviews. This resulted in examining the collaboration between accountant and entrepreneur. What derived from current collaboration moments was that there is a “mismatch” between accountant and entrepreneur. In more detail, the two have different values regarding their financial situation and this often results in friction (e.g. too late delivery of documents by an entrepreneur). To solve this problem a new concept is presented in this graduation project which is in line with a current developing trend. This is the changing role of accountants to become business advisors. The concept helps accountants to “think like an entrepreneur” by communicating among goals. This facilitates accountants to give more natural advice, since they retrieve insights in their client. Entrepreneurs now have a internal driver to make use of Exact Online, because they want to complete their goals in order to strive towards success.