User Archetypes
Bruce Mau Design developed six hypothetical users of SOM’s website based on internet traffic analysis and competitive research. Each character represented an audience any firm’s site must serve. With a face on each user segment, the need to revamp the site suddenly became focused and urgent.
1. Potential Client Mohamed Khalfan, 42, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Government official, Ministry of Finance and Industry
A highly placed and overworked senior official, Khalfan is an “efficient, no-nonsense search fanatic” charged with assessing architecture firms in preparation for an architecture competition to build a new training facility. SOM’s ability to immediately give him the information he needs is the first requirement for getting his very lucrative business.
2. Media Chris Woods, 37, New York
Editor, major architecture magazine
As a decision-making editor at an influential design magazine, Woods is relatively up-to-date on the latest doings of major architecture firms. But with a fast-approaching deadline for choosing firms to include in a large “Future of American Architecture” package, he needs to quickly survey SOM’s most recent work and achievements.
3. Education (Student) Marianne Jensen, 23, Copenhagen, Denmark
Student, design school
Jensen is widely respected among her peers as the “go-to” person for cutting-edge design matters, and she has an insatiable curiosity about the latest innovations around the world. Being one of her oft-visited bookmarks is essential. She’ll transmit trends within her circle of burgeoning professionals, plus she’s potentially a valuable future employee of SOM.
4. Education (Faculty) Wong Deng, 55, Nanjing, China
Professor of architecture and urban planning, China Art Academy
Architecture professors establish a firm’s place in history, and professor Wong Deng’s ability to draw on images and information from SOM’s site determines whether he helps make the firm visible to the next generation of designers and developers in the bonanza of the Chinese market.
5. Employee Ian Blythe, 29, Chicago
Architect, SOM
As one of the several hundred architects, engineers, and administrators who most often visit SOM.com, Blythe mostly uses the site to access the firm’s intranet, where he browses through the technical library. He periodically contributes to design blogs at other Web sites, and he wants to be better connected with SOM projects around the world.
6. Collaborator David Solomon, 28, Los Angeles
Architect, Gehry Partners
Architects need to search for upcoming projects and services to anticipate partnership possibilities with SOM. Solomon is one of the young design elite at Frank Gehry’s L.A. office.