How Archetypes Can Help Focus Your Library’s Website on User Needs

User personas are out. Try user archetypes instead!

Posted on July 1, 2024 in Blog Posts

Authors:

Robin Camille Davis
A UX librarian looking at user archetypes instead of personas

A decade ago, user experience (UX) practitioners were regularly creating something called “personas.” It was a widely accepted convention, including in libraries, and it purported to help center the design process on people. But recently, personas have fallen out of favor. Let’s explore why, and what we can use instead.

What are personas?

They are detailed, fictional user profiles, which are based on user research and intended to represent the characteristics and needs of real users. Usually, a UX team (or website committee, as the case may be) creates several personas and brings them up throughout the design process to ensure that new or improved interfaces serve those users’ needs. For example, my colleagues at NC State University Libraries went through an in-depth persona creation process in 2010.

Example personas for an academic library might include…

  • Juan, 20, undergraduate majoring in biochemistry. Lives in a campus dorm. He relies on the library for access to textbooks and study spaces, both of which he may use at all hours of the day. His primary tasks are looking up textbooks for new classes and browsing the video game collection. His time management skills are not well developed, and he’s often completing assignments last-minute.
  • Kendall, 27, graduate student in the design MFA program. Lives 30 minutes from campus with her parents. She relies on the library website for access to ebooks and articles, but she rarely visits the library in person. She has a part-time job at Port City Java. Her primary task is searching for topics in Summon and other databases.
  • Dani DeLisle, 41, faculty member in the computer science program. Lives 20 minutes from campus, and only works on campus on Mondays and Tuesdays. They rely mainly on Google Scholar for academic research. Their primary tasks are putting teaching materials on reserve and using the library’s proxy login service.
  • François, 30, transfer student from a nearby community college…
  • Genevieve, 72, longtime donor to the Friends of the Libraries…

And so on.

Each of these personas is often accompanied by a stock photo, lists of behaviors and frustrations, and made-up quotes about their beliefs, goals, and preferences. You can find a good example from the Nielsen Norman Group, a UX firm.

Personas help to ground the UX mantra “you are not your user” in useful, memorable characters that can be cited by name during the website design process. “If we reduce the tabbed search box to just one search box, how would Kendall approach her research?” “Let’s examine the search results page from François’ perspective…” In an ideal design process, personas really do help designers, strategists, and developers remember that they’re creating interfaces for people who have different perspectives and needs. Personas encourage empathy with users.

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What’s the problem with user personas?

There are a couple of issues with these detailed, fictional personas.

For one, they are often the result of fun brainstorming sessions (ideally based on user demographics and research), which can end up being a time-consuming project with results that are not actually used very much. It can end up being more of a creative writing exercise than a productive methodology. This is a common failure.

For another, choosing names, ages, genders, ethnicities, photographs, and other socially complex details for each persona can be distracting at best and culturally insensitive at worst. These data points can help make the fictional persona feel real, but are they necessary? Not for the purpose of user-centered design, which should focus on user needs and tasks, not elaborate biographies.

Use archetypes instead

Rather than creating a bio and choosing a name and a photo, UX practitioners now often leave out these details and create realistic archetypes. These focus on needs, goals, behaviors, and tasks, which can still be of use during the design process.

Examples of archetypes for an academic library might include…

  • The Organized Student. Needs: expert-level databases; librarian consultations that can be scheduled ahead of time; study rooms that can be reserved. Behaviors: takes several days or even weeks to complete major assignments; starts at the library website.
  • The Stressed Student. Needs: fast, beginner-level access to sources; late-night librarian chat window; uncluttered interface. Behaviors: often completes assignments last-minute; starts research with Google unless otherwise instructed; would rather find one semi-relevant source quickly than a highly relevant source that takes time to locate.
  • The Busy Instructor. Needs: help uploading materials to course reserves; reliable and timely email communication with library staff; library instruction sessions scheduled at start of semester. Behaviors: often forgets to reactivate course reserves for new semester; uses Google or another search engine to find specific library website pages rather than starting at the homepage.
  • The Power-User Faculty Member…

  • The Librarian at a Peer Institution…

And so on. The names are less memorable, and the bios are nonexistent, but the core usefulness of user personas is preserved with archetypes. They’re easier to grasp and quicker to create. Again, archetypes should be based in reality, and they need to be informed by user research and a deep understanding of the breadth of your users.

Throughout the design process, UX practitioners can consider the viewpoints and needs of these archetypes to ensure that interfaces and user flows work for all of them. For more about archetypes, including a good example, check out “Personas vs. Archetypes” from the Nielsen Norman Group.

In libraries, it’s particularly challenging to design website interfaces that are friendly to beginners and experts alike. Having at least those two broad archetypes can result in constructive conversations and design insights. Creating archetypes along other existing, broad characteristics can further help your library focus on serving real user needs while considering a real range of user behaviors.

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