Pam Chuang, Ari Dukes, Leo Espindle
There are a few personas who represent the main users of our product. To create each persona we have interviewed people who perform user class function:
Phyllis the Traveler
Phyllis is a salesperson and an experienced traveler. She works late almost everyday and is always looking for new ways to make her daily job more efficient, especially for tasks that do not directly impact her performance at her job. She has three kids, and therefore wants to maximize the amount of time she spends at home. She is comfortable with using the internet for her daily job, but she is not necessarily up to date with the newest cutting edge technology. She finds that doing reimbursements is the worst part of her day, and most of the time has to take care of her expense reporting at home, because she is not allowed to bill those hours to her work. Phyllis wants an interface that is easy to use and will save her a lot of time.
Lessons learned from a business consultant (Traveler persona):
Things already done well for expense reporting:
Things that are not done well with regard to expense reporting:
Juan the Auditor
Juan is an auditor who has to deal with multiple systems. Juan works in the finance department and has to transfer the data from expense reporting to the financial software used by the finance department for bigger expenses. Juan enjoys his job because of the analytical aspects that he enjoys doing and also enjoys finding mistakes that people make. Juan's primary role is to look at expense reports and compare line items to insure that there is nothing wrong between the receipts and expense reporting. Juan also analyzes total travel expenses for all employees across the whole company and is always looking for incremental ways to improve travel expense reporting.
Lessons learned from auditor (Auditor Persona):
Things that are not done well with regard to expense reporting:
Mary the Approver
Mary is a sales manager who cares about dealing with her budget. She has ten direct reports (including Phyllis) and just wants to see the big picture to see how her employees are spending money. She generally only cares about big ticket items but will appreciate reducing waste in her budget as long as she does not have to put in any extra effort. She is very busy at work and with kids, and she does not have time to analyze individual line items but yet has to approve every expense report. She consults with the traveler to help them plan where to go. She is part of the initial process and a user of the system herself. She likes her job, which she has held for 30 years. She is less tech savvy than Phyllis.
Lessons learned from a VP of Sales (Approver Persona):
Things that are not done well with regard to expense reporting:
Andy the Assistant
Andy is the business manager of the office. In addition to his own responsibilities, he is often called on to handle expenses for executives of the firm. Andy hates his job, particularly the repetitive paperwork tasks he has to do day in and day out. He also hates how a lot of clerical work (like expense reports) get dumped on him on Friday, as the executives leave for the weekend. Andy is relatively young for the office, and has ample experience with web-based applications due to his browsing activities during work hours.
Lessons learned from a Business Manager (Assistant Persona)
There are a few main tasks involved with creating MileageManager. These tasks include:
Create a tripe
Goal: Enter a trip into the system for eventual approval
Subtasks
Preconditions
Time constraints
Frequency of use
Approve a trip
Goal: Sign off on a requested amount for mileage reimbursement
Subtasks
Preconditions
Time constraints
Frequency of use
Analyze trip
Goal: Look for discrepancies or unusual behaviors in mileage
Preconditions
Time constraints
Frequency of use
The administrator can create, read, update and delete accounts. These accounts can be: "Traveler Account", "Approver Account" or "Auditor Account".
Travelers can create, read, update and delete trips.
Approvers can approve or reject trips.
Auditors can analyze trips and export reports that contain information about the trips.