Personas
Personas are representations of the goals and behaviors of the hypothesized group of users. They are discussion documents that we use to help us see our work through the eyes of the target market — our internal and external stakeholders: customers, suppliers, donors, staff, constituents, citizens etc.
User Personas
User Personas help the individual design with a clear vision of your user in mind, the persona is specific and gives shape to your user base.
A User Persona may consist of;
- Age
- Sex
- Occupation
- Hobbies
- Likes/dislikes
- Other details related to the product such as behavior patterns, goals, skills, attitudes and their environment (or context)
Personas are based on research, however, they may be informed from a variety of sources and can be generated in a number of ways:
- Customer interviews and observational research
- Stakeholder workshops
- Website usage metrics
- User surveys & other feedback
- Demographic information (age, geography, income etc.)
- SEO/keyword analysis
Artefact Personas
Applying personas to the artefact, this is in reference to the project and rather not the user. This helps when thinking about the visual design of the product and what it communicates, can be useful for client meetings.
To develop an artefact persona, you’d ask product personality questions. This can provide an idea of the desired personality of the product you’re designing.
Reflection
This lecture was a great resource as it outlined the importance of personas, and how to create them. User personas are a great tool to show a users personality as well how they interact with a product. Overall, this article emphasized how personas are extremely useful especially when created properly as they can guide the ideation processes and development in terms of designing towards your target market.
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