Essentials of UI Design XXXXVI: What is a User Persona?
When you build a digital product, you also want to know the profile of your target users. This is known as a user persona in UX. Let’s introduce you to the concept of user personas and how you can use them to build expected user experience into your products.
Defining User Personas
Product experts are divided concerning the usefulness of user personas. Some believe they do not contribute meaningfully to UX design while others recommend not using them at all. However, user personas can play a significant role in eliciting empathy, alignment, and direction for UX teams. The only caveat is they need to be done properly.
User personas are research-based, model representations of your ideal user. Typically, only one-page long, they outline the context, motivations, and needs of specific user audiences.
Besides UX, personas are applicable in other disciplines like marketing, product management, and user research. They are adaptable tools, so different personas can co-exist in one digital product context.
Personas enable stakeholders to empathize with real users, understand them better, and target the right audience groups when creating products.
Design Personas vs. Marketing Personas
The terms are often used interchangeably, but they are different. Marketing personas represent people who buy a product or service. They map customer buying behavior to content and offers.
In the same vein, design personas represent those who use the product or service. They’re useful for mapping user needs to product solutions, so they are crucial in the design process.
Bearing this distinction in mind, UX designers maintain 2 or 3 personas representing different user types. These personas help to segment different user types, understand user needs and motivations. The objective is to create product solutions that meet those needs.
What Does a UX Persona Look Like?
UX personas combine text and images to represent your “typical” product user. This includes:
The persona’s name
An image (avatar, illustration, photo, or stock image will do)
Demographic information, including:
persona’s age
gender
family/living situation
employment status
other details relevant to the product or problem space
Persona needs and goals relating to your product
Summary of persona pain points relative to product or problem space
Quotes from real users represented by persona
Creating practical user personas has enabled design teams to create some of the most effective products from both a user and business perspective. You can check out some of these impactful user flows on UILand.
