Personas for Taxonomy Development

Personas created for the purpose of classifying and organizing content come with unique considerations.

1. How does your audience look for information?What kind of behaviors do they exhibit? What triggers information seeking? What sources do they turn to, in what order, and why? For example, if your primary audience never uses the Advanced Search capability on your site but shows enthusiasm for sites where they can refine search criteria, this should be captured in the persona.
2. How does your audience process information and make decisions?How far will they go before they turn to a competitor’s site or give up altogether? How do they deal with information overload? Including these details in the persona will help you brainstorm how to present navigation, minimize burden, and filter with care.
3. How does your audience perform personal information management (PIM)?How do users organize and label personal information? Are they tagging on their own in order to keep track of content? If you can get a peek into their file structure or bookmarking system, this will reveal organizing principles and terminology that will need to be considered for the taxonomy.

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