User Persona: Uber
(4 minute read, not including research report)
Although this piece isn't very "visual" or "flashy", I still felt it was important to include this amongst my other UX/UI-related works. One of the key takeaways I've gotten from learning about UX design so far it that it's more than just creating the visuals/interface for an app, or digital prototype.
Conducting research to better understand the target audience, through demographics, behaviours, and wants/needs is just as important as understanding and designing with tools to create based on this information.
This assignment served as a reminder to be considerate about understanding the target audience and to go in-depth with research as much as possible. Feel free to read more about this project below.
Context & Challenges
In my UX Design elective, our task for one of our projects was to individually conduct research for key users of Uber in the City of Toronto. We were required to determine the primary, secondary, and tertiary audiences for the app based on our research. From there, we were to create a user profile based on our chosen primary audience, followed by a user persona from that profile.
Perhaps the biggest challenge coming into this assignment was trying to narrow down all Uber users to three potential target audiences, as it seems at first glance that almost anyone and everyone can and will use Uber if the opportunity presents itself. Another challenge was being able to find credible sources to start and justify my research, as the demographics of Toronto are quite diverse and large in range.
Process & Insight
The first order of business was to try and find credible sources and reports that gave better insight into the overall demographics of the city. I would then need to find other reports that may be able to track Uber and/or taxi users. I knew that in order to make a more detailed user persona that covered wants/needs, as well as what this person might do on a day to day basis, I would need to delve into:
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Income
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Education & career choices, and
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Comparison of users of Uber to users of other modes of transportation in the city (to paint a better picture of goals and frustrations), among other insights
Fortunately, there was a very detailed and helpful report that was conducted by Ipsos Reid that gave the vast majority of information that I would need to create a persona.
You can click on the PDF icon to see the full extent of the conducted research, which covers all the topics above, general demographics of Toronto residents, as well as general motivations for using Uber and other forms of transportation.
Solution
Taking all these factors into consideration, I narrowed down the primary, secondary and tertiary audiences to be:
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Working Millennials
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Young Adults/Professionals
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Uber Drivers
Although at a glance, the first two categories appear to look the same, I felt it was important to make a distinction, as "millennials" were aged 23-38 (as of 2019). People younger than the age of 23 use the app quite frequently and it was important to make sure they were included as well.
The persona I created below was based on the user profile created for the primary audience of Uber in Toronto:
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Segment: Working Millennials
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Age: 23-36 years old
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Income: $40,000 - $80,000
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Work: Educated Professional, Career-Oriented
Our professor reminded us to consider whether or not gender is necessary for a user persona. I appreciate this being brought to my attention as it made me approach this part differently. The persona here is supposed to be gender-neutral.
The user persona that was created based on the research conducted. This was all created from scratch using Adobe Illustrator.
This project was undoubtedly essential to my growth and learning in the field of UX design. If we are unable to understand why someone would want or need our product/service, then we will not be creating in a way that makes the user's life or experience more efficient and seamless.
The research component of UX is just as important as any of the visual components of it. This served as a reminder to me that both are essential to successful design, and go hand in hand with each other.