Companies offering products or services must gain a deep understanding of their customers to design offerings that meet their needs, inspire purchases, and also align with strategic planning and product development. To effectively communicate the customer profile across the organization, companies often create user, or buyer personas. These personas are typically developed by marketing, user experience, or product management teams to guide the marketing, development, and sales of products that resonate with the target audience.
Defining user personas
You might be wondering, “What are user personas?” According to Adobe, user personas are “archetypical users whose goals and characteristics represent the needs of a larger group of users.” Usually, a persona is presented in a one or two-page document (the more concise, the better), which includes behavior patterns, goals, skills, attitudes, and background information, as well as the environment in which a persona operates.
If we were to make a checklist for what is typically included in a standard user persona, it might look something like this:
- Name and demographics
- Bio and personality traits
- How they typically use a product/service
- Motivations and frustrations (also referred to as likes and dislikes in some cases)
- Goals
- Quotes
It is important to note that personas are not a one-size-fits-all tool. They should be used with a specific, well-defined goal in mind. The data captured in a persona should reflect the goal for that persona and the scope of work it is meant to impact.
Who are user persons designed for?
Many different roles in an organization can derive great benefit from user personas. Traditionally, it is the product designer that would have the most use for personas as they are the ones relying on them to develop products. However, other roles such as developers, marketers, sales, and high-level decision makers (think C-Suite) can all benefit from the information that personas provide. Personas help individuals in these roles make more informed decisions while keeping the end-user in mind by answering key questions. Examples of questions answered include:
- Who is my ideal user?
- What are the current behavior patterns of my users?
- What are the needs and goals of my users?
- What issues and pain points do they currently face within the given context?
Asking and answering these questions leads to better outcomes because well-defined personas enable product designers to efficiently identify and communicate user needs. Personas help describe the individuals who use a product, which is essential to the product’s value proposition. Personas help with strategizing and making smart design decisions. They are also helpful to have if an organization chooses to conduct a UX audit.
Why are user personas important?
There are many benefits of developing user personas. One of the most important and impactful benefits is building user empathy which enables a product designer to put themselves in the user’s shoes and develop a product that fits that user. Additional benefits include:
- Provide directions for making design decisions: Personas help product designers shape product strategy and are used during usability testing sessions. A deep understanding of user behavior and needs makes it possible to define who a product is being created for and what is necessary for them from a user-centered point of view, allowing product teams to prioritize feature requests.
- Prevent common design pitfalls: Personas help prevent common design pitfalls such as self-referential design (designing for oneself) and designing for elastic users (a generic user, who’s characteristics change to suit the needs of the developer/designer).
- Communicate research findings consistently: All team members, regardless of expertise and point of view, should be on the same page in terms of design decisions. Personas capture the most critical information about users in a way that all team members and stakeholders can understand and relate to.
- Define the workflow: Creating user personas can help teams eliminate irrelevant factors and focus on the defined needs of users. This can boost the workflow and provide a strategic path to follow. Throughout the process, teams will be able to redirect their efforts and make every step of the production more effective.
- Enhance product positioning: The exercise of creating user personas can help teams understand and identify a market for their product or service. It will enable them to place their product in a viable environment and help them make the most of the opportunities available to them.
HelloInfo has completed many projects that have included user personas across a variety of industries. We typically deploy quantitative and qualitative approaches, including questionnaires and in-depth user interviews, to create our client’s unique user personas. For more information on how we can help you develop user personas for your product, schedule a meeting with us.
