Personas

Personas are fictional archetype users created to represent real users. They are an incredibly powerful tool design tool.

A set of personas are created at the beginning of project and are used as a guide and a reference throughout the project.

Why use personas?

Some reasons for using personas are:

Puts considerations of user needs at the heart of the project – at a minimum they serve to provoke a discussion of user needs in the team
Forces the team to acknowledgement that there is a range of users they must provide for for – not just one generic user
Focuses the team on providing for the target users – not just the amorphous 'general public'
Serve as a convenient way of placing all the data known about your users in one place for easy reference – and with the advantage of being in a form that all can understand

Personas are quick and cheap. They have been employed in the advertising industry for some time. Using personas for websites is more recent, but now much more widely used as their effective has been recognised.

What are personas used for?

Personas are used to:

Define user requirements – what content, services, and interactions the user will need.
Help define user journey's – the paths users will take to acheive their goals.
Interogate business requirements – what the business assumes the user wants, and what the user wants are often not the same thing.
Prioritise requirements – personas like real users tend to be demanding, but some requirements are more important than other.

Personas are a way of understanding why you you are providing something, how best way (or ways) provide that something are. They should contribute to the overall vision for the final product.

How are personas created?

Personas are simple written descriptons of users. Each persona is usually assigned a name, a photograph, and their goals, motivations, characteristics and behaviours are described.

This will include the kind of work they do, a sketch of their personal circumstances, their familiarity with technology, their likes and dislikes, and any special or notable circumstances – for example if they are blind.

The task a writing your archetypical users into life can be as involved as you can afford in time or money, but even a quick and dirty approach relies on research. Fortunately most businesses and organisations have some knowledge of who their users are, and very often some hard data.

The types of resources that can be drawn upon when creating personas include:

Sales information
Customer feedback
Customer research
Web analytics
Fieldwork and ethnograhpies

In depth ethnographic studies are not always possible, but it is not hard to speak to people. These can be real users, or people in the business with experience of real users.

A workshop brainstorming session can be a great way of developing personas, as well as getting your team to take some time walking in your customers shoes.

How many personas are needed?

Typically half a dozen persona profiles are created with the aim of representing a broad cross section of the targetted audience.

As a rule of thumb there should be a persona each representing:

The core, or most frequent, user/customer – the customer you want to retain
The infrequent user/customer who you would like to – the customer you want to encourage
The user/customer you don't yet have – the customer you want to attract

In some cases as few as two or three personas is sufficient. Some projects will require more, but it is important not to let them proliferate unduly. One important virtue of using personas is to focus the team on user experience, and too many personas can inhibit that focus.

What are the drawbacks of using personas?

There are no disadvantages to using personas in general, but there are some pitfalls to be aware of.

Personas, are powerfully useful, but they are not gospel. Rarely will they capture every aspect of every (relevant) user out there in the real world. They need to be handled sensibly, and understood as useful fictions.

Appropriate levels of sceptiscism need to be applied. Personas, like real users, can be fickle and contradictory in their requirements.

Personas can be refined as the project progresses, and additional personas created if absolutely neccesary.