One of my mentees went to work for a UX agency (a proper one, with a beautiful research lab and lots of people with letters after their names) and asked me during one of our catch ups “we don’t really do personas on my project— am I missing out? I was told this was part of the process”.
Most UX courses — online, face-to-face, university or private — as well as the majority of UX-related textbooks place “personas” (pen portraits, user profiles etc etc) at the heart of the design process. An output of generative research, they are needed as you move into the “Define” stage and you better bloody well have them front of mind before you start designing something.
So what’s going on here?
Not creating personas definitely breaks with what I was taught back in the day, however, on reflection, I concluded that there is actually obvious reason why this team didn’t create personas on this project — they didn’t need to.
Think about the purpose of personas; they are a communication tool which builds empathy and reduces the distance between team and user.
