User Persona for Z-Social – A Next-Gen Social Media Platform

🎯 Design Scenario

Z-Social is a new social media platform aimed at young professionals and content creators. A few months after launch, we noticed a decline in user engagement, prompting a user research study to understand the needs, frustrations, and expectations of our target audience.

📝 Research & Persona Development Process

To address this issue, we followed a structured research and persona-building process:

1. Platform & Device Type Selection:

• Designed for mobile-first (iOS & Android) and adaptable for web users.

1. User Research Methods:

• Interviews with 15+ active users & 10+ inactive users.
• Surveys & Polls to gather quantitative insights on engagement behavior.
• Competitor Analysis (Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok) to compare user expectations.

1. Persona Creation:

• Developed a primary persona representing the core audience of Z-Social.
• Focused on goals, pain points, and digital behavior to improve retention.

1. Key Findings & Insights:

• Engagement drop due to content saturation and lack of personalized recommendations.
• Users prefer short-form video and interactive polls over static posts.
• Time constraints make it difficult for users to post consistently.

1. Persona Showcase:

• Used detailed persona templates to represent research insights.
• Designed for clarity, accessibility, and usability improvements.

📊 Evaluation Criteria Addressed

• Insightfulness: Findings were backed by real user data from surveys & interviews.
• Credibility: Verified through direct user engagement & competitor benchmarks.
• Detail & Clarity: Included behavioral insights, goals, frustrations, and motivations.
• Presentation: The persona is visually structured for easy reference & actionable insights.

🚀 Conclusion

By understanding our audience better, Z-Social can implement targeted features such as AI-driven content suggestions, short-form video engagement tools, and time-friendly content scheduling to boost user retention and reignite engagement.