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Just wondering if personas that have been developed as part of user research generally fits in with various types of market segmentation categories, such as those in products developed by market research companies like Helix (Roy Morgan), or acorn (CACI) and others, or if there is little overlap between UX research personas and marketing segments because the focus of the research and analysis is different?

Has anybody had access to both marketing segmentation research and UX research for a project and found that they didn't match? Or perhaps that they match perfectly and therefore you can leverage other insights derived from marketing research?

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  • Very interesting question.
    – Deekshit-CUA
    Oct 28, 2016 at 3:52

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Walmart's $1.85 billion mistake

I am afraid, probably, this might not be the right answer what you are looking for, but I really feel worth sharing it.

I think this is a great example to show that the “Market Study / Research” is completely different than the “User Experience Research” which caused $1.85 Billion Mistake”.

This proves the importance of the User Experience Research.

Here are the major differences:

Market Research

  • What people say
  • What people will buy
  • Large samples size
  • Broad insight

User Experience Research

  • What people do
  • How people use a product or service
  • Small sample sizes
  • Deep, focused insight

enter image description here

https://consumerist.com/2011/04/18/walmart-declutters-aisles-per-customer-request-then-loses-185-billion-in-sales/

enter image description here http://goodexperience.com/blog/2011/04/ignore-the-customer-e.php

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  • I take the point about what the focus of the research is (I definitely think you shouldn't apply marketing strategy as UX strategy), but I am wondering whether the way that you can create a persona or market segment is still valid in helping to define the type of customer/user you are dealing with.
    – Michael Lai ♦
    Oct 28, 2016 at 11:40
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    @MichaelLai - As I said earlier, this is a quite interesting question. The market research is the key to any project during initial strategy, planning phase and later on in validating the design. It focuses more on large samples and identifies the market or market segment, but the persona is about the concrete characterization of a user or a group (not the market segment).
    – Deekshit-CUA
    Oct 28, 2016 at 12:01
  • "Would you like Walmart to be less cluttered?" This is a terrible way to ask this question and I hope the person who wrote it was flogged. The question itself implies that Walmart is cluttered, which is a negative. So of course people will say they want less negatives in their stores.
    – Ken Mohnkern
    Dec 27, 2016 at 14:28

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