Create User Profiles
Not only do different groups have different goals, members within the same group may have different goals. Creating a user profile allows you to visualize an actual person in your mind and write for that person specifically. And creating multiple user profiles helps you find the style, tone, and message that would appeal to the majority.
Let’s take College X as an example. This passage has been borrowed from the MIT admissions site.
- College X just might be the most fun your brain ever had. And we hope you'll approach the application process as an adventure, too. For starters, it's a chance to explore the inner reaches of the Institute - to get a sense of the remarkable people and ideas that give College X its crackling intensity.
The writer clearly envisioned a certain kind of student in her mind before she wrote this text. Perhaps she was thinking of:
- A smart student, but not an intellectual nerdy type.
- A hip student, but not too hip that he isn't a little worried about the application process
- A serious student, but not so serious that he isn’t concerned about having some fun
Perhaps the writer went so far as to create a persona for the user profile. Maybe the writer imagined she was writing to Jason Laskin, age 18, top of his class in high school, winner of the science fair, rock climber, eclectic taste includes wearing his father’s discarded suit jackets over a concert t-shirt.
But if the writer thinks only of Jason Laskin, what about other users who fall into the student category? There may be more serious students who don’t want to read “the most fun” in the first sentence. Then the writer may have imagined she was writing to Sara Ellison, age 19, President of the National Honor Society, President of the French Club, an aspiring foreign correspondent, urban taste includes dining at fine restaurants and watching avant garde theater.
Developing several user profiles for the same audience group allows you to reach that middle ground that appeals to most.
