How the Political Persona Project works

First off, we surveyed 3300 people who volunteered to be contacted as part of the Your Vote political interactive that ran on Fairfax websites during last year's Australian election campaign.

We asked this group just over 100 questions. Data experts from Kieskompas then examined the responses to see where clusters of attitudes and beliefs formed among Australian voters.

Once we had identified the different clusters, we saw which issues those groups agreed and disagreed upon, and developed working persona names with those attributes.

The Australian National University's Social Research Centre then surveyed a nationally-representative sample of 2600 Australians from all walks of life, using a whittled down list of questions.

This second survey, conducted in December, was used to weight the results from the first survey to ensure it accurately reflected the wider population.

We did similar analysis of clusters, finding a lot of similarities with the first survey but also some subtle differences. A number of the personas were refined as a result.

The views of each persona were mapped on each issue, and as you fill out the interactive you are given a score for how much you agree or disagree with each persona.

The final result is your total score.

It's important to note that almost no one is an exact match for any of these theoretical personas. But by defining them, we can then compare you, and see which ones you most resemble or differ from.

You can read the full methodology of the project here.