Learning Personas

One project I was tasked with as instructional designer at Qualtrics was to develop learning personas to more clearly identify our audience and inform a new strategy for our advisory services training. Qualtrics only offered the existing advisory training to learners who met highly selective qualifications, which led to 33% of learners being rejected from the training application. We wanted to broaden access to more learners, but we first needed to determine who our learners were and what gaps they had. I spearheaded this initiative and directly worked with our target audience to determine these gaps and provide a recommendation strategy to the leadership team.

TOOLS USED: Google Slides, Qualtrics, Google Sheets

AUDIENCE: Qualtrics partner team leadership, instructional designers

RESPONSIBILITIES: interviews, data collection, instructional design, project management

Process

To develop a recommendation, I began with research. I wanted to answer the following questions: 

1. Who was our audience? What education and professional experience did they have? 

2. Why were they getting rejected from our application? What gaps existed? 

3. Were there any similarities between applicants? How could we develop a solution that helped the most amount of people? 

To answer these questions, I conducted interviews and data collection with our target audience. I developed an interview protocol and survey to learn about our applicants. After data collection period, I reviewed and summarized the results. I was able to determine four distinct learning personas, below. 

The first four slides are individual profiles of each persona, painting a picture of a typical background. The last slide is a summary slide with all personas. These personas were the foundation of a new training strategy plan presented to the leadership team.

Based on these personas, my teammate and I developed a new training strategy that catered to each persona. By creating a new approach, we were able to expand the Qualtrics training to a wider, more diverse audience. To design the plan, we looked at the background and experiences of each persona -- what education and past careers did they have? What gaps existed? What was their motivation to take this training? By thinking through these factors (and more), we drafted a training plan and presented it, along with these personas, to our leadership team. 

Final Product

Our final product was a learning journey outline for each learning persona. Unfortunately, I cannot display the plan, but each learning journey consisted of all the specific course modules needed based on their education and prior experience. We presented this to leadership and after receiving their feedback, was given the green light to start course development.

Reflection

This project was the first strategic initiative I had the pleasure of working on. While it was initially an ambiguous ask, I was able to work with my manager and senior teammate to navigate and develop a game plan. I worked with a range of people, including director-level stakeholders, learners, internal subject matter experts, and other instructional designers, where I learned how to effectively communicate and work with each type of person. This project also leveraged my analysis and research skills, and I was able to apply these skills in a fast-paced, corporate setting.