Personas and Objectives — Reader and Purpose First
The product manager asks you for "a page about SMS alerts". About what, for whom, to do what? Priya, a freelance web developer who looks after fifteen client websites, wants outage alerts for each client on her phone. Ken, the finance manager at a company that uses Nightjar, wants to know what SMS alerts will cost. Same topic, two completely different pages.
The rule
Name the reader and the goal before you write a word.
Three tools make this concrete.
A persona is a short sketch of one type of reader, built from evidence such as interviews, support tickets and usage data, not from imagination. Nightjar's main persona:
- Priya, freelance web developer. Looks after fifteen small-business websites.
- Goal: hear about an outage before her clients do.
- Knows: HTML, hosting and domain settings; not an operations specialist.
- Reads: between client jobs, often on her phone.
- Worries about: false alarms waking her at night.
Reader intent is why someone arrived at the page. Four intents cover most visits: to learn (understand an idea), to do (complete a task), to fix (solve a problem) and to decide (choose or buy). The intent sets the shape: a "do" reader wants steps; a "decide" reader wants comparisons and costs.
A content objective is what the page must achieve, written so you could check it: "After reading, Priya can add her phone as an SMS alert channel and connect it to her clients' monitors." Pages often have a business objective too, such as "fewer support tickets asking how to set up SMS".
The shortcut
Write a one-line brief before drafting: For [persona], who wants to [intent], this page lets them [objective]. If you cannot fill every gap, you are not ready to write.
Persona
Priya: technical but no operations specialist, often reading on her phone.
The trap is writing for "everyone". A page for everyone serves no one: beginners drown in detail and experts wade through basics.
Drills
Answer fast — trust the rule.
Which is the best source for a persona?
A reader searches for "nightjar sms alerts not arriving". What is their intent?
Which is a checkable content objective?
Priya needs to set up SMS alerts; Ken needs to know what they cost. What is the best approach?
Remember
- Name the reader and the goal before you write a word.
- Shortcut: the one-line brief: for this persona, with this intent, the page lets them do this.
- Trap: writing for "everyone", which serves no one.