Behavioral-Personas & Journey Maps

Introduction

Students are a curious group of subjects. We’re realistically closer to adulthood than childhood, yet… there’s plenty of things we still take for granted. So childish, right?

For example, one of the things we overlook the most is our health, mentally and physically. Physically – that’s easy to see. We choose food for its convenience, not its nutritional value. We’re not thinking about the long long term yet, all we know is “where do we see ourselves in five years.” And who can blame us? There’s so much to be done all the time: so many people to meet, clubs to join, internship applications to send, friends to make, eXpErIeNcEs To TrY, tEaChErS tO IMPRESS, RESEARCH TO CONDUCT-

😮‍💨.

Like I said, who can blame us? Just our future selves who’ll look back and think: why on EARTH did I need to eat so many quesadillas and pizookies (woe is me, the pizookies!) all the time? And the worst part is, we told ourselves it was for the greater good.

Food = Fuel = Grades = Internship = Job = Money = House = Family = Life. SO SIMPLE.

But what we don’t know is that what we put into our bodies now is already making an impact 20 years from now. We just don’t know it yet. I’m guilty of this myself, or at least I was. It’s hard to get better when all you have access to is the convenient stuff that is also *very conveniently* the unhealthiest stuff.

So that’s what we decided to examine: how do we get our fellow students to eat healthier at night?

Persona: The Midnight Oil Fueler

From our data collection, this persona emerged as one of the most common characters – the Midnight Oil Fueler, as I call them. Burning the midnight oil (or should I say midnight grease) with the sustenance of burgers, fries, and sugary drinks.

Activated Role: A student with a busy daytime schedule.

Goal: Complete as much work as possible during the open night window.

Motivation: Deadlines are looming at midnight or the following day.

“I want… to get some food to refuel myself because… I need to be able to keep working- just one more chapter, one more problem.“

Conflict: Having too much to do during the day (social commitments, work, classes, office hours), no spare time to dedicate to work, consuming an early dinner because of scheduling conflicts/rigidity, no motivation to work during the day (because it’ll be so short, it won’t make a difference)

Attempts to Solve: Trying to wake up earlier rather than sleeping late, storing snacks in their room for later, taking short power naps during the day, timing work with friends to avoid procrastination and create social anchors

Results: It’s all well and good until one day when there’s just too much. Then there’s a domino effect: one day off balance leads to a quarter full of playing catch-up, where sleep becomes negligible.

Settings: Dorm room, dining hall(s), Late Night at Lakeside, TAP, On Call, friends’ dorm rooms

Key Tools: Music (headphones), laptop/phone, friends to support and sympathize

Skills: Being able to stay awake and alert for long periods of time, some task prioritization (when the procrastination sets in), focus (also based on procrastination)

Routines: Wake up late, skip breakfast, maybe go to the gym, eat an early dinner

Habits: Hold off on work until substantial time is available or until the buffer window has passed, lean towards fried/greasy food & sugary drinks for energy, stay up past work is done to cram some social media time in there

The Midnight Oil Fueler’s Journey Map

The life of this persona can be best represented within the span of a single day in a 12 to 12 arc. The graph above depicts the bell-shaped trajectory of their mood, peaking at midday and dipping as they return to the witching hour, when their brains start working on sugar and grease steroids.

There are two versions of this student: (1) one that finishes their work by midnight to meet some deadlines and calls it quits, and (2) one that works on into the wee hours of the night.

Here is a simpler breakdown of this graphic with the statuses of each version of the persona (we’ll call version 1 as A and version 2 as B):

12 A.M. – A

• SAY: “All done! Time for a treat.”
• DO: Scroll and enjoy a sweet (like a pizookie 🍪🍨)
• THINK: … no more work for today …
• FEEL: Accomplished!

4 A.M. – B

• SAY: “That’s as far as I can get.”
• DO: Close the laptop lid, climb into bed and pass out
• THINK: … I can try to finish in the morning …
• FEEL: Drained

9 A.M. – A & B

• SAY: “Let’s get a little work done.”
• DO: Take a shower, go to the gym
• THINK: … OK, now I have time, let’s make the most of it …
• FEEL: Refreshed

12 P.M. – A & B

• SAY: “Pizza for lunch – sweet!”
• DO: Eat & talk/scroll
• THINK: … still half the day left …
• FEEL: Energized!

5 P.M. – A

• SAY: “Dinner wasn’t too bad…”
• DO: Talk w/ friends
• THINK: … almost done with classes for the day …
• FEEL: Satiated

6 P.M. – B

• SAY: “Gotta get back to Huang for OH!”
• DO: Dine & dash
• THINK: … I hope there isn’t a crazy long queue at OH …
• FEEL: Rushed

8 P.M. – A & B

• SAY: “I need to lock TF in now.”
• DO: Put on headphones, start the grind playlist
• THINK: … I hope I don’t have to take a late day …
• FEEL: Pressured

11:59 P.M. – A & B

• SAY (A): “SUBMIT, damnit!”
• DO (A): Frantically upload PDFs to Gradescope
• THINK (A): … please, Please, PLEASE GO THROUGH …
• FEEL (A): Suffocated!
• SAY (B): “Okay, next problem.”
• DO (B): Get garlic fries at Late Night at Lakeside
• THINK (B): … just a few more hours …
• FEEL (B): Tired

Key Insights

Some key points to be noted from this analysis are as follows:

1. Unhealthy food is the best treat or reward at the end of the day, specifically sweet foods. Nothing else will culminate the day in the same way.
2. Skipping breakfast – a lost meal that the late night food (subconsciously) makes up for?
3. Less time to work in the day = more work in the night = almost 100% guaranteed food consumption
4. Early dinner leaves a large gap to be filled between then and bedtime – hours are not compatible with dining halls.
5. Heavy foods somehow give the impression of energy?
6. The only available foods are Late Night and TAP in the late hours… and all they have is fried food…

There are several points here for change, but still some fundamental questions to be answered. We hope to have the chance to do more user research and analysis over the next week to get some of these confusion points resolved!

By Ananya Navale.