When to Do It

Start thinking about your user profiles before you start developing your product. The concept of your audience should emerge simultaneously with the concept of your product. After all, you're making something for someone, so who's that someone?

Products are maximally flexible before you start the nitty-gritty work of product development. Before you've committed yourself to a development path, you can adjust what the product does and whom it's for. These early decisions determine the direction for the whole process and commit a lot of energy and resources. Early mistakes can haunt you for a long time. It's doubtful that you want costly features or groups of users who require exorbitant amounts of support for little return. A set of carefully constructed user profiles can help you understand why you're making what you're making and why people are going to buy it.

Creating a set of user profiles (Table 7.1) should always be the first step of a research plan. It can be done in a couple of days and requires only a whiteboard, Post-it notes, and the development team's participation. It also has the side effect of helping build a new team and giving them a common foundation from which to communicate.

Table 7.1: A TYPICAL USER PROFILE SCHEDULE

Timing	Activity
t - 2 weeks	Organize space and invite participants (generally in-house stakeholders). Begin preliminary research.
t - 1 week	Complete participant scheduling. Continue preliminary research.
t - 2 days	Complete preliminary research and summarize. Confirm participants.
t - 1 day t	Prepare space; verify schedule.
t	Profile exercise (1–2 days, usually).
t + 1 day	Begin compilation of profile.
t + 3 days	Complete compilation of profile. Present profile to whole development team. Distribute documentation.