The power of personas
I like what Leigh Duncan has to say about the benefits of personas in this MarketingProfs article and in her follow-up blog post. One of the points she makes is that many companies become so focused on the tasks for improving the site that they forget about users. Meetings about action items "fall flat in rallying the troops because in the end, they're about tasks, not about the customer. They fail to unite individuals around real people and a common set of goals that will help service those people, and instead focus individuals on operational activity."