Behavioral Persona
Our team is interested in encouraging people to make faster and/or better decisions for themselves with more confidence. Below, I have developed a persona of the person I interviewed into an organized diagram. For privacy reasons, I did not disclose the name of my interviewee and referred to him as John Doe.
| Role: |
John Doe is a Stanford senior studying Earth Systems. |
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| Goal |
John Doe wants to efficiently make decisions that maximize their physical well-being… |
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| Motivation |
…because they always seem to choose decisions that make them physically unwell (e.g. self-deprivation). |
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| Conflict |
They are an empath who tends to base their decisions on how it would impact others, even if it is at the expense of their own well-being. |
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| Attempts to Solve |
They tried limiting their social interactions with friends by not responding and/or reaching out when they have a big workload. |
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| Setting/ Environment |
They are confronted with the decision of choosing between their academics or social life whenever they are in high-frequency, social settings such as the dining hall, dormitory, and fitness center. |
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| Tools |
John uses the iPhone Notes app to document his assignments for that day. He generally sets a deadline for when to complete the task. If successfully completed, he rewards himself by meeting up with friends. |
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| Skills |
Self-Awareness: John usually documents his day through daily journaling, and he is quite aware that he neglects his physical well-being when he prioritizes his friends over getting enough sleep or going to the gym. |
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| Routines |
He tends to always be surrounded by his friends from eating at the dining hall and going to the gym on a daily basis. |
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| Habits |
Generally chooses to hang out with friends when the opportunity presents itself, even when faced with other difficult and more important tasks. |
User Journey
There were many instances in which John Doe was making a decision between something that was academic-related and the other being socially-related. In many of the situations, where he was confronted with this decision, he often chose to prioritize his social commitments. It appears that his relationship with others and the impact his actions may have on his friends are important to him, even if it is at the expense of his well-being. John Doe is quite self-aware of his lack of motivation to do school-related and has even attempted to distance himself from people and/or things that are distracting to him, yet he still repeatedly fails.
