Mental Models. Indi Young

      CHAPTER 4

      Define Task-Based Audience Segments

       Task-Based Audience Segments

       Set Research Scope

      Before you begin any kind of research, you need to decide whom to study. In traditional usability research and marketing studies, this has been determined by demographic or psychographic segmentation. Additionally, personality types like VALS[1] or Myers-Briggs[2] have made up the criteria by which research participants were chosen. While personality types do touch upon behavior,[3] generative research for building mental models requires that you select from groups of people who want to get different things done. Because you will want to tailor your end solutions to fit each audience exactly, grouping audiences by differences in behavior is important. You want to end up with solutions that match actions and philosophies closely rather than with one solution that fits several audiences loosely. Figure out what people want to accomplish, look for differences, and group accordingly. These are task-based audience segments.