The importance of multidisciplinarity in the construction of personas
In this text I wanted to propose a more innovative way to create personas. Using design thinking you can create multidisciplinary personas, which means, personas beyond the tradicional model, produced by the user experience designer, it implies in brought the team members to be part of it. This simple act can increase the level of fidelity of your personas with your real users/clients, because it will provide more depth and detailing, and you can achieve it through co-creation.
Persona is a UX tool that uses some of the target audience/public concepts, like demographic data, but its goal is impersonate the user, focusing on its habits, behavior and analyze of the use context wich the individual are.
There are proto-personas, it usually are used as general guides, builded in a fisrt moment of a project, to get the start where is needed strategic definitions right away. The difference between a persona and a proto-persona is the first one was validated and the second one is based on insights of the involved team.
What I´m proposing in this text is a more strategic aprouch, it can increase the potential of this tool through a design thinking mindset.
In another words, it means brings persons with strategic roles in the project, they usually are part of the strategy, but they are not part of the persona´s production. The challenge is everyone think characteristics of the persona but tached to its own role at the project, points that impact in the metrics and goals of the business strategy.
Here in Brazil, it can vary, but usually the tstrategy teams structures are like the model below:
In strategical multidisciplinarity teams all members have its own vision of the product/service, because of that, all members should be part of the core of the strategical plan, what I´m proposing it´s to incorporate the persona as strategical tool in this phase. The whole team gives insights related do their own field of knowledge and contributes to the process of persona´s creation.
How we can conduce the team in order to not be confused with all sort of insights and a line of thought can be followed? Therefore it´s crucial the role of facilitator be the responsible for it, here I must say, at my point of view, I think the use of Design Thinking as methodology at this point can be very helpful and useful to keep the strategical thought.
The whole team must have it´s own vision about the persona, isn´t? If you would do a canvas to facilitate this task, how would you do that? Reflecting about that, I proposed the following model: agroup in larges aspects of the strategy: data, needs, habits, value and tasks.
In every aspect of the strategy, what the most useful insights, ideas?
What the focus of which one in this moment of brainstorming?
In this phase it is crucial the role of the facilitator, to conduce the members of the team in the right path, always keeping the strategical thought, but in an confortable and welcome enviroment, where the person feel free to express it´s ideas and explorer their creative potential.
I think much more easy to group ideas in a canvas, I think this tool allows a great interativity between the persons and is more relaxed than put the ideas in a document, besides it is munch more agile style.
Below I present an example that ilustrated how we can use the canvas to do this type of task:
Personas are a extensive subject, altough some people don´t see it as the great importance that is needed. The produced personas should be updated periodically acording the project, and the business goal.
How much more rich you persona´s models are, more assertive will be the decisions in all levels od the business companie. I bounce the importance in the use of objective and subjective data in the persona´s, by subjective I mean, behavioral habits, facts, not just numbers.
The clients database and the personas are the core of a business. If you do not know very deeply your client, how you are doing your strategy? What are you based on?
Here I ask you, how you do this process of knowing your client in your companie? Sharing some points and how you work in your daily . Our challenge is always sharing knowledge!
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