
Personas are used to bridge the gap between research and
Personas are particularly useful for bigger projects and targets a large audience.
Instead of using the term “the user” persona gives a personality to a user group which in turn helps in discussions. Example, you may be able to ask in the discussions, “will this mobile alert feature help Sophie”
Personas are “north star that you can point towards whenever the discussions start veering towards personal opinions”
“Personas should be based on data.”
Jamal Nichols, Independent UX Designer | Founder at Truth About Design
Everyone will have
Persona creating exercise help bring all the stakeholders into the picture. So, at any time, later down the project path, if someone says, honestly, I don’t like this colour, you as a designer, let’s say, can tell him that “I don’t like this colour either, but remember the persona we all together created, – Mathew, and the group of users he represents, this colour represents an effective way to reach them.” So cocreating personas with business leaders will help get things done effectively.
What do they include
- A name and a photo
- Demographic information
- Goals and needs & pain points
- Preferences
- Environment of use
- And whatever else is important
How to create personas
Traditional way: Take the data from online research, website analytics, user interviews, Intuition and condense the findings into personas with names.
In a resource crunch environment, the lean UX way: Take the data from online research, intuition, Web analytics and then condense the findings into personas with names. This way is not as good as the traditional way of creating personas but still these personas serve as foundations to focus your minds on while designing the product. These personas are based on lot of assumptions, which can be verified as more data is collected and recruit users based on these assumption personas.
In the lean UX persona creation, you sit down with the team members after the research is done, and everyone makes a set of personas. Stick them on a wall. Identify the similar personas, combine them and find only the unique personas and derive features out of it.
Identifying the behavioural variables
Activities: What the user does, frequency and volume
Attitudes: How the user thinks about the product domain and technology
Aptitudes: What education and training the user has and his ability to learn.
Motivations: Why the user is engaged in the product domain
Skills: Users abilities related to the domain and technology
After personas are created, draw a spectrum of skills from Novice to expert and people in between. And map the personas to their respective position along the spectrum.
Dangers with personas
They quickly devolve into stereotypes. Don’t let yourself or the team to focus too much on demographics or photo. This might lead to stereotyping the personas. While creating an accounting software, don’t let yourself entering information into personas like ‘John likes fishing and hiking during weekends’. Information like these,
Solution
So, focus more on the personas goals and motivations and what’s going on through their minds, their pain points and how they are solving the pain points currently. Always keep relevant information in the persona that directly impacts the product and its features.
Referenced books:
Experience Required: How to Become a UX Leader Regardless of Your Role:
Robert Hoekman Jr.
Our take: This is an excellent video that gives you an overview of personas and how it influences the design choices. The speaker uses several real project examples to better explain the key points. However, we personally feel that
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Jamal Nichols, Independent UX Designer | Founder at Truth About Design
German-American Design leader, mentor, and champion. The unique perspective I bring to your
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