Alright, let me tell you about this whole “personas chinos” thing. It wasn’t something I planned, you know? It just kinda happened. I was working at this small company, we were doing okay, nothing fancy. Then one day, the big boss comes in, all excited, and says, “We’re going into the Chinese market!” Just like that. Out of the blue.
Honestly, my first thought was, “Oh great, more work.” My dog, Buster, had just chewed up my favorite sneakers, the expensive ones, and I was still a bit salty about that. So, new market, new project, probably meant I could afford a new pair without feeling guilty. You gotta find motivation where you can, right?
Getting Started (or Stumbling, Rather)
So, they tasked me with figuring out who our users in China would be. “Create some personas,” they said. I’d done personas before for our local market, so I thought, “Sure, how hard can it be?” Spoiler: it was harder than I thought. A lot harder.
My first instinct was to just, you know, find some common Chinese names, slap on some generic demographic info, and call it a day. Maybe find some stock photos. But then I stopped myself. That felt super lazy and, honestly, pretty ignorant. China’s huge, right? It’s not like everyone there is the same. That’s like saying everyone in my country is exactly like my weird Uncle Barry. Just no.
So, I actually had to sit down and think. Where do I even begin? We didn’t have a budget to fly over there and talk to people. We barely had a budget for decent coffee in the office.
The “Research” Phase – AKA My Internet Deep Dive
I started digging online. First roadblock: many of the usual sites and social media I’d use for research here weren’t the main players there. I had to learn about WeChat, Weibo, Douyin, Xiaohongshu… it was a whole new digital world. I spent hours just trying to understand what these platforms were for and who used them.
I tried to find articles, studies, anything really. A lot of it was either super high-level marketing speak that wasn’t very useful, or it was behind a paywall we couldn’t afford. It was frustrating. I remember spending a whole afternoon just trying to understand mobile payment habits. It’s like, everyone uses their phone to pay for everything over there. Mind-blowing for me at the time.
I also quickly realized that just translating our current personas wouldn’t work. The cultural context is just so different. Motivations, concerns, how people make decisions – it’s not a one-to-one match.
- Language: Obvious one, but even with translation tools, nuances get lost. I wasn’t reading Chinese, so I was always getting things second-hand.
- Diversity: The difference between someone in a big city like Shanghai and someone in a smaller town or rural area is massive. Tech access, lifestyle, everything.
- Social Influences: The impact of family, social circles, and online influencers seemed way more pronounced in many of the anecdotes I read.
Actually Trying to Build Something Useful
After a lot of this somewhat chaotic research, I started to piece things together. I decided to create a few distinct personas, trying to avoid stereotypes as much as humanly possible with my limited resources.
I focused on:
Their digital life: Which apps are they glued to? How do they communicate? Where do they get information?
Their goals and frustrations: What are they trying to achieve? What gets in their way? This was the hardest part to figure out authentically.
Their purchasing habits: How do they shop? What influences their buying decisions?
I gave them names, ages, and tried to build little backstories. For example, instead of just “Tech-savvy young person,” I tried to imagine “Chen Wei, a 22-year-old university student in Guangzhou, who loves mobile games, uses Douyin for entertainment, and relies on group chats in WeChat for study group discussions. He’s saving up for a new phone.” I tried to add details that felt a bit more real, based on what I’d read.
I made sure to include what social media they used, what kind of content they consumed, and even their attitudes towards things like privacy or brand loyalty, as much as I could glean.
The “Big Reveal” and What I Learned
When I presented them to the team, it was… interesting. Some folks got it. Others were a bit skeptical, asking, “But how do we know this is accurate?” And that was a fair question. These personas were built on secondary research, a lot of reading, and some educated guesses. They weren’t perfect, not by a long shot.
But you know what? They were a starting point. They were way better than going in blind or relying on stereotypes. It forced us to think differently about our product and how it might be received. It made us ask questions we hadn’t considered before.
For me, the biggest takeaway was humility. You can’t just assume you understand a whole different culture from your desk chair thousands of miles away. It takes serious effort, and even then, you’re probably just scratching the surface. It also made me realize how important it is to have local insights if you’re serious about a new market. Those “personas chinos” were a tough nut to crack, but I learned a ton trying.
And yeah, I eventually got those new sneakers. So, Buster’s destructive tendencies indirectly funded my cross-cultural user research education. Funny how things work out.
