After collecting our customer profiles by interviewing people we found interesting, we then used the information we brought to class to identify a segment of consumers who will be our potential customers and be the focus of our product design. We have the choice to either create two different customer segment profiles or one customer segment profile but with two different layouts.

I am impressed that I managed to interview 8 people in total and would be happy to do more. I choose Ifer as my customer as she is one of the people that gives complete answers with lots of explanations. Doing customer profile interviews has made me realize that there are a lot of elements behind someone’s style. The inspiration that comes to each person is different but similar to their segments at the same time. These have made it easier for me to understand what their interests are and predict what kind of style they may have. I was able to get a lot of information about a person through the interview by asking some ‘simple’ questions, though some don’t really have as much to say as others. This shows how different everybody and their personality are. Other than that, I now have a better understanding of how stores utilize different marketing mix in order to create and maintain demand, relevance, reputation, competition, and much more. The research process gave me a better grasp of the knowledge behind how even small details are important for a store in order to succeed. How a lot of things actually have an underlying effect on customers’ decisions. For instance, a store’s lighting may seem like a simple thing for some, but it actually has a lot of advantages if done correctly. It intrigues me that one component can have so many benefits to the store’s environment.

Meanwhile, for the creation of the customer segment, I researched through the internet to obtain pictures to help communicate my ideas clearly. It has been very useful. I was getting great feedback from my classmates, they were able to picture what I was trying to express. I was relieved that the process went as planned and that it was what I expected. At first, I was going to go with making two different customer profiles but ended up producing one customer segment profile with two different layouts. I did experience some problems during the process. I wasn’t very fond of my first layout, and I only managed to finish one layout during the class. As usual, this has something to do with my time management. I didn’t really have anything in mind when making the first layout, I spent quite some time trying to find the pictures and position them the way I think fit well. In terms of visuals, I don’t think that they are clear and pleasing enough to read. So, I made the second layout as homework, this time, the process was way faster. I already had the idea planned so it was easier to piece them together. I felt like the first layout I did was too invariable and basic. The font choice also didn’t match the vibe. I try to incorporate as much information I had in mind as possible, including demographic, psychographic, and geographic variables so that they are understandable. I picked up the source of information by assuming what these peoples might have an interest in, by getting information from people’s social media accounts that has the same aesthetic and style, from the person I have interviewed as well. I started by imagining how their lives and background might be, then move on to looking for suitable pictures after which I added texts for further explanation.

I paid attention to the fonts, colors, quality of the pictures, and overall cohesiveness. These elements play a big role as I feel like one simple detail can have so much effect on the overall board. To illustrate, the fonts used has to match the vibe of the customers because it won’t match if I had used bold thick fonts for my profile. Furthermore, I used the feedback I received from my classmates as a way to improve my layout. One of them told me that the text was a bit too close together, responding to this, I changed my text spacing. These feedbacks were very useful in helping me build the customer segment board.