Personas: Getting Started

What Is A Persona?

Personas are archetypes (models) that represent groups of real users, who have similar attributes.

A persona encapsulates and explains the most crucial data about users in a way that team members can understand, remember and relate to.

What is it not:

• Market Segments
• Stereotypes
• Average Users

What Are Personas Used For?

• Defining and building the product
• Marketing the product
• Prioritizing bug fixes
• Building consensus and rally the team around a goal

What does a persona contain?

• Picture (to visualize and remember)
• Name (to communicate about it)
• Personal background
• Attitude
• Goals
• Behavior

How Are Personas Created?

6 Phases

1. Setup (Build a team, state research goals)
2. Leverage existing infos (Collect what you know about the domain and your customers)
3. Prototyping (Build AdHoc Personas)
4. Primary Research (Talk to target groups/stakeholder to verify your prototyping)
5. Synthesis (Map Research to prototypes)
6. Build & Use