Personas for Supernova Social

Strengths of Your Approach:

• Clear Research Foundation: You started with secondary research (app store reviews, online feedback), which is a solid way to identify existing pain points and positive aspects before investing in primary research. Categorising feedback into positive and negative buckets is an effective synthesis method that highlights opportunities and risks.
• Alignment with Business Goals: The personas reflect Supernova’s unique value proposition: positivity, ethical moderation, and charitable giving. Including motivations like “making social media more meaningful” and “supporting causes” aligns well with the app’s mission.
• Distinct Persona Type: Splitting into Content Creator/Consumer and Charity Owner is strategic because these groups have different behaviours and success metrics.This segmentation ensures design decisions cater to both individual engagement and organisational impact.
• Interview Questions: Your questions are goal-oriented (e.g., “How important is it that your social media usage has a positive impact on society?”), which will uncover values and expectations beyond surface-level usage. Including app-specific questions helps validate assumptions about Supernova’s differentiators.

Areas for Improvement

• Persona Depth and Diversity: The Sarah Chen persona is well-structured but could include behavioural context (e.g., “How often does she donate?”, “Preferred content formats?”). Consider also adding tech habits (e.g., device usage, app-switching behaviour) to inform UI/UX decisions.
• Pain Points vs Frustrations: There’s some overlap between these sections. My opinion is that Pain Points = barriers to achieving goals (e.g., “Overwhelmed by choosing charities”), while Frustrations = emotional triggers (e.g., “Fatigue from ads on other platforms”). Keeping these distinct will help prioritise functional vs emotional design solutions.
• Negative Feedback Integration: Issues like blocking harassers and account deletion from your research should appear in personas as explicit needs or trust concerns. This ensures the design team addresses critical safety and control features early.

Great job overall!!!