3 Things That Helped Me Create Proto-personas
Learning to create proto-persona
It’s obvious that knowing your market is one of the most import aspects in developing any type of product. Personas are a popular and effective way to explore what the people who use your product might be like. Full fledged personas generally require lots of research and time. If you don’t have the time and resources required for a full persona, proto-personas are a good way to go.
Here are three things that I learned about making proto-personas
Strive to Know Your People
Do whatever you can to vicariously get to know your people. One way you can do this is to try and make sure your team includes people that know the product well and deally with the customer. Some examples of this may be someone who works in customer support on the phones or someone who works directly in some sort of sales function. The more direct knowledge you can have of people that use your product the better production quality your proto-personas will have.
Create a Story
What is this person like? What events in their life lead them to your product? What are their hopes and dreams? What drives them to make decisions? what might be holding them back from your product? Find questions to ask that may be specific to your products. Coalaces these things (and more)into their own hypothetical story. Concentrate on creating an empathetic narrative to help you visualise people's wants and needs and why they might use your product. It’s truly an exercise in informed imagination.
It Won’t Be Perfect
This is not a real person and it never will be. Proto-personas are just meant to get you thinking about people empathetically. Definitely don’t get too caught up in making these the most perfect realistic things. Take the time that’s needed to do your best with the time a resources you have. Work with your team and move on with whatever valuable information you make.
Conclusion
Proto-personas are a nifty fast way to get an empathetic view of potential clientele. I personally really like proto-personas a lot for their fast and dirty process. Even though I like the process I know there is always room for improvement as well as things that don’t know or could do better. I look forward to learning future improvement to personas and evolving my knowledge.
Brian Nelson is a student in the Digital Media program at Utah Valley University, Orem Utah, studying Web & App Development. The following article relates to a project that involved making Proto-personas for design guides in the DGM 2271 Course and representative of the skills learned.
