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A persona is that portrait or profile of a person who represents a potential customer for a brand. Creating personas allows companies to conduct more effective marketing and sales activities. Each persona must have a rationale and relate to specific goals - but more on that later.
Instructions for creating personas are not in short supply. In fact, it can be said that the Internet is crowded with this topic. However, do we need another article on this topic? Precisely in order to draw attention to certain aspects that are often overlooked or underdeveloped. This can lead to mistakes when creating personas, when we rely solely on information found on the web, which can lead to potential inaccuracies.
See also what an empathy map is and how to create one.
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If you're reading these words now, there's a good chance you're aware of the essence of personas creation. But let me quickly remind you of some of the benefits of this tool.
Well-developed personae will help:
A common mistake is to invite every available person to contribute to customer profiles, thinking that everyone may have something valuable to add. Unfortunately, the more people who participate, the greater the risk of differences in views and goals. Yes, diverse perspectives can be useful, but be careful not to lose clarity. A sensible approach? Offer participation in customer profiling to representatives from different departments (I'll discuss which ones specifically shortly), rather than involving all members of those teams.
This is the person who will make a decision in a stalemate, directing your path. Otherwise, you may be trapped in endless disputes over the smallest details. It is worth noting that this decision-making figure should know the company well and be associated with it for the long term. For example, it could be the CEO, a board member or someone with similar influence.
Describing the representatives of the target group without direct contact with them is impractical. To create accurate personae, it is worth listening to Customer Success Managers and customer service representatives. They are the ones who have direct knowledge and experience with users, which can greatly facilitate the process of creating personas.
There is an important point: it doesn't always make sense to involve low-level salespeople in the personas process. It's better to invite a department manager, someone who has knowledge of the customers provided to him by the team and can look at the matter from a business perspective.
Last, but not least: you also need someone who has experience in evaluating effective and ineffective marketing activities, has an understanding of communications. As with sales: you don't need to involve the entire department, just a manager.
Finally, an important note: your optimal team for creating personas should not exceed 5-8 people.
Everything we create - from books and articles to websites or blog texts - is yours. The best content created when we write with the genre in mind. Like well-known children's fairy tales, which were often born from children's stories before they found their way to paper. In marketing activities, our person is our imaginary - but real in its essence - addressee.
First, it is worth analyzing the history of existing customers if the product was or is already in circulation. Let's check their profiles such as age, gender, expenses and all available information. Even if we only have basic data such as name, surname and place of residence, Facebook can provide significant knowledge. It's a real treasure trove of information. Even your own Facebook page can provide valuable elements for creating a persona. If we are just starting out, it is worth analyzing competitor profiles, observing who is active there and whether any patterns can be identified (such as age, problems, interests).
The next step is to analyze data from Google Analytics or another system collecting information about users of our website. Google Analytics can provide interesting reports, including demographic reports outlining the interests of our visitors, which is an extremely useful feature. It is also worth taking a look at the phrases in Google Search Console. There, we often come across interesting queries that may shed light on the problems with which our potential customers come to our website (e.g. how to repair the clutch in Fiat Punto). Some of these questions may be really surprising.
Remember that if the company has already conducted research or analysis, it is worth taking it into account. However, if this data is over 12 months old, it is a good idea to verify that it is still current. Using the company's e-mail or telephone database to send surveys for completion can provide valuable information from sellers or customer service, which is an invaluable source for creating our personas.
What is crucial is that the persona will evolve with your functional tests. Many personas die in companies due to lack of regular updating and insufficient initial development.
As soon as possible! Creating a persona is a priority before the product itself. Sometimes we optimize an existing product using various UX tools and strategies. Even then, when creating a persona, we start from scratch. It is crucial that we are clear about our target group and who we are actually designing our product for. Making the team aware of who our client is and introducing the idea of a persona from the very beginning is crucial. A persona should be our companion throughout the entire work process.
Definitely. For large projects, it is worth dividing our clientele into different segments (e.g. goals, behaviors, purchase value, problems, etc.). Sometimes certain persona characteristics may be mutually exclusive. In smaller projects with a limited amount of data, creating many personas may be redundant. In this case, let's consider combining them into one. The final decision is up to us.
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To begin with, it is worth defining what exactly you want to use the persona for. Set your main goal as well as additional goals. For example, for a salesperson, the priority is to make a sale, for a Project Manager, the priority is to deliver the project on time, etc.
The next step is needs. Make a list of the most important events or factors necessary to achieve the main goal.
Presenting the user story is the next step. Here it is important to create two concise paragraphs that describe the setting, context and company in the first paragraph and the course of a typical day in the second paragraph. This will allow the design team to more easily understand the background and everyday user experience.
Enter useful items. It is a list of things, situations or facilities that, although nice, are not necessary to achieve the main goal. These are elements that can improve user comfort, although they are not crucial to achieving the goal.
Choose your fears, think about what may be an obstacle to achieving your goal. Rank them from most to least important. Focus on those that you have confirmed in several different places or situations.
Personalization is the last step where we add the human element. Here we include some information that will make our persona more authentic. We introduce some private facts and information about the software used. Choose a photo of a person that looks natural. Remember not to violate anyone's rights, it is best to choose a photo from available photo banks, such as "100,000 faces generated by artificial intelligence".
Let's bring some life to our persona with colors. However, let's try to be moderate - we don't want to create something that looks like an overly colorful leaflet, but rather a document that adds a certain aesthetics and transparency.
See also what Design Thinking is
Discard unnecessary decorations. Focusing on form at the expense of content is a trap for UX designers who previously worked as graphic designers or UI designers. I have experienced this to some extent myself. The persona is intended to convey information, not to compete in aesthetic competitions - it is a work support tool.
Can you see the beautiful sliders? They are there only for decoration, they have no scale or meaning. They can be confusing to interpret. Just like with your CV, sliders are something you should avoid. Leaving room for interpretation is the hallmark of a poorly developed persona.
Quotes can only fill an empty space in a persona, but they don't actually add significant value. It's better to leave quotes to Pula Coelho if they absolutely must appear.
If you are working on creating a new brand, for example a competitor to Samsung, logos can be useful in the context of creating a persona. However, if you are designing a solution, service or function, logos are likely to distract attention from important information. In most cases they are unnecessary.
Don't base your persona on interpretations. It's tempting, but it can lead to creating characters based on imagination rather than real data. I have often seen cases where personas were created out of nowhere - usually due to lack of sufficient information about the users. This is a great time to get back to collecting data. Maybe it's worth interviewing customers? I remember trying to create a persona based on psychological aspects when there was no psychologist in the room. What emerged then was pure interpretation, not actual data. Such fabrications should be rejected because they are based on visions, not facts.
TIP
Make sure your persona is precise, clear and easy to understand.
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The persona card is a treasure trove of information about our imaginary user. It should be easily accessible to all employees involved in the project. This is a tool that will help everyone understand how our product can meet user needs. The programmer will find tips on functionality, the graphic designer will gain guidelines on customer preferences, and the copywriter will find topics consistent with the characteristics of the persona. Each employee responsible for the product can use the persona as a filter to make decisions about future actions.
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