MSU International Center Food Court: Persona

by Lei Zhang
For academic purposes only.

User: Linda, 21, Senior in Accounting
Height: 5’5’’ Weight: 129 lbs

Personality: Talkative, sweet and hard working. Linda is an undergraduate student at MSU in accounting. She lives in Shaw Hall. The Shall Hall, Business Collage and International Center Food Court are all located on the Shaw Street. It is very convenient for Linda to go to the food court either from the dorm or after class.

Goal: Linda gained weight by dining at the dorm’s cafeteria. She is looking for a place to have a healthier and lighter meal. She needs to do some research and find the right information to help her achieve
her goal.

Information Needed: Linda’s plan is to find a low-calorie and healthy meal, so she needs the information about the ingredients, nutrition, calories and flavors. For example, Linda wants a meal under 700 calories. She will look up all the options online or through the physical environment from all the food court stores that have food under 700 calories. Some stores provide healthier food options will have more choices while some, such as pizza and fried food stores, will provide less choices. After assessing the information, Linda can pick her favorite option for lunch or dinner.

Motivators: Since living in the dorm, Linda always went to the cafeteria for meals and she gained a lot of weight. She has decided to find a healthier place to eat and potentially lose weight.

Problem setting: There’s always a lot of students that dine in the International Center Food Court causing the people who work there to not have enough for the costumers. It is hard for Linda to find the information that she wants due to a lack of nutrition information on the restaurant menus.

Online Affordances: First, Linda doesn’t need to hurry when she does her research online. Second, the online environment provides more information and knowledge about the food Linda wants to know about. Finally, the online environment has opportunities to be more visually interesting.