Crafting Narratives Within Narratives: The Power of User Personas in Digital Storytelling
By Maren Demant
As a lecturer specializing in digital narratives, I have spent countless hours exploring the techniques and tools that transform abstract concepts into engaging stories. One such tool that continually proves itself to be an invaluable asset is the concept of ‘user personas.’ Renowned in scientific design and used extensively in corporate strategy, these fictional characters serve a dual purpose. They’re not just constructs to understand users better; they’re narratives within themselves.
User personas are essentially fabricated characters that encapsulate your potential users. Let’s consider ‘Artsy Ari,’ a 30-year-old art aficionado with a penchant for unique digital experiences. Creating such personas helps us delve into the complex world of our users, understanding their behaviors, needs, and desires.
At this point, it’s important to distinguish between user personas and target groups. Both are crucial in identifying who our narrative is for, but they serve different roles. A target group is a broad segment of potential users, typically defined by shared demographic or behavioral traits, like ‘art lovers aged 30–40.’ This gives us a general idea but lacks the human-centric insights that user personas provide. By focusing on a persona like ‘Artsy Ari,’ we gain a more detailed, relatable user profile that guides the narrative.
In my lectures, I always emphasize the need for a range of user personas, each contributing unique perspectives. ‘Critical Chris’ might be the skeptic who’s tough to impress, while ‘Enthusiastic Ella’ could be the engaged user who deeply immerses herself in digital experiences. These varied personas enrich the narrative, ensuring it resonates with a diverse audience.
This isn’t just an academic approach. Renowned corporations employ user personas extensively, which drives more user-centered product development. Scientific research also supports this strategy, highlighting that using personas in design processes leads to higher user satisfaction and engagement.
One of my favorite practices in the classroom is to really bring these personas to life. I have my students hand-draw their user personas. The process of translating their understanding of the persona into a physical sketch enhances their connection with this fictitious character. Sometimes, I even encourage them to create life-sized cardboard cut-outs of their personas. Having a tangible, physical embodiment of the persona — someone who can ‘sit’ at the table with them — adds an extra layer of relatability and makes the persona feel more ‘real.’ This, in turn, fosters a deeper level of empathy and understanding, vital in user-centered design.
I’m fond of incorporating these user personas into brainstorming sessions. Posing questions like “How would ‘Artsy Ari’ react to this feature?” or “Would ‘Critical Chris’ find this interface intuitive?” that being answered in the user personas voice and manner by the students. This injects an empathetic perspective into the discussion, fostering richer debates and facilitating more user-centric design decisions.
The process of creating a user persona is a narrative in itself. You’re crafting a vivid character, complete with a backstory. The steps include:
- User Research: Understand your potential users through interviews, surveys, or observation.
- Identify Patterns: Look for common traits or patterns in the collected data, such as shared interests or goals.
- Create Persona Profiles: Create distinct persona profiles based on these patterns, including demographics, behavior patterns, motivations, and goals.
- Personify Your Personas: Give your personas a name and backstory. Make them feel as real as possible.
- Implement and Refine: Use these personas to guide your project decisions. Continuously refine them based on user feedback and new data.
In essence, user personas breathe life into the development process. They transform into virtual team members, each contributing unique perspectives and influencing the project’s direction. This encourages a deep level of empathy, essential in user-centered design.
Templates to create user personas — in tools like Figma — help you to start from scratch and guide you in your user persona creation.
So, the next time you set out on a digital narrative project, remember to extend an invitation to your user personas. They bring a unique dynamic to the process and help craft a narrative that deeply resonates with your audience. Ready to embark on this exciting journey of user-centered design and narrative creation?
The story begins with understanding the heart of your user.
Maren Demant is an immersive experience designer, lecturer and co-founder at Invisible Room — a studio for software development and design in Berlin. The company produces handmade digital and analog experiences with a focus on ‘Extended Reality’.
