**How to Use the Quick-and-Easy Customer Profile**

**1. Prepare**

-   Find a partner: a usability specialist, web manager, or other
    colleague

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-   Gather and print out the following metrics data ahead of time, if
    available:

    -   Number of site visitors per month for a recent month

    -   Top 20 most visited pages

    -   Top 20 top search keywords and phrases (internal and external)

    -   Website and agency mission statements and strategic plan

-   Send data to your partner

**2. Explore**

-   Spend 1-2 hours completing the Q&E Customer Profile together

-   As you talk, complete the Q&E Customer Profile online, exploring
    your website to learn about your top customers and tasks. Expand any
    of the questions to fit *your* site if you need to

-   Refer to the metrics as you talk, too

-   When you discover what you *don't* know, insert question marks so
    you know where to follow up later

**3. Review**

-   You've completed your profile; now you're ready to edit

-   List your customers in order of importance, (most important
    customer, next most important customer, etc.) Importance is defined
    as the estimated numbers of customers times (x) the number and
    complexity of their tasks

-   Edit and prioritize the list of top tasks

-   Brainstorm other occasions you might come into contact with your top
    customers

-   Capture your observations and recommendations on the Profile form

-   If you haven't already done your mini-persona, do it now---it's fun!

**4. Validate and Proceed**

-   Circulate this draft Customer Profile to your web team and get
    feedback

-   Follow up on missing metrics and question marks and update the
    Profile

-   Confirm assumptions by talking to actual customers and
    subject-matter experts at your agency, and update the Profile

-   Distribute the Q&E Customer Profile to your web team and set a date
    by which you will make some initial changes to the website

-   Iterate the process!

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  **Quick-and-Easy Customer Profile**

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Spend 1-2 hours with a colleague completing this questionnaire. The
results will help you identify your website's top customers and their
top tasks.

**\
Webpage name and URL:**

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| **What are your website goals?** (Your agency's business              |
| goals---e.g., have visitors use the web instead of the phone, *and*   |
| your website customer's goals---e.g., complete an online form as      |
| painlessly as possible)                                               |
|                                                                       |
| **What sources will you use to measure your goals?** (e.g.,           |
| productivity reports)                                                 |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| **Webpage statistics for** \[Insert month, year\]**:**                |
|                                                                       |
| Number of website visitors:                                           |
|                                                                       |
| Top visited pages:                                                    |
|                                                                       |
| Top search terms (internal and external):                             |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| **Who are your top customer types?**                                  |
|                                                                       |
| a\)                                                                   |
|                                                                       |
| b\)                                                                   |
|                                                                       |
| c\)                                                                   |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| **Estimate the number of visitors of each customer type, and compute  |
| the percentage of the total visitors:**                               |
|                                                                       |
| a\)                                                                   |
|                                                                       |
| b\)                                                                   |
|                                                                       |
| c\)                                                                   |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| **What are their primary tasks:**                                     |
|                                                                       |
| a\)                                                                   |
|                                                                       |
| b\)                                                                   |
|                                                                       |
| c\)                                                                   |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| **Which is your *primary* customer type?\                             |
| **(Estimated numbers of customers x task complexity x task frequency) |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| **Do you meet with this customer regularly at meetings, conferences,  |
| etc.?\                                                                |
| List where:**                                                         |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| **Income group/Education level/Staff level/GS grade/:**               |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| **Typical job titles:**                                               |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| **Observations and recommendations**                                  |
|                                                                       |
| Look again at your website. Does it address your primary customer and |
| tasks?                                                                |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| **Which websites "compete" with your website?** (Government,          |
| nonprofit, or commercial)                                             |
|                                                                       |
| **What can you learn from their top tasks?**                          |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| **Customer Mini-Persona**                                             |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| **Name/Title:**                                                       |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| **Photo:** (Choose a name, go to a search engine images page, select  |
| an image with that name, adjust name query as needed; don't spend     |
| more than 5 minutes on this!)                                         |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| **Drives what type of car:**                                          |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+