Persona (Not the game series)

How you can tell people (specifically your customers) apart

“ The Japanese say you have three faces. The first face, you show to the world. The second face, you show to your close friends, and your family. The third face, you never show anyone. It is the truest reflection of who you are.”

Now I don’t know who wrote that, or if the Japanese actually have that kind of saying, but what I do know that this is the best description of a persona anywhere on the web (except the websites that explain persona in a UX context).

What is it?

A persona is a mask for your customer that you make. It’s what you expect your customers to be like in every aspect of their life, so that we can get into their skin and feel what is the most comfortable design or what is the right design tailored to that market. Their personalities, their feelings, their objectives of why they are in this website/app, all must be accounted for so that their experience in the website/app is as good as possible.

Cool, how do I make one?

After doing some market research in the form of User Interviews, questionnaires and discussions with the client, you should the lowest common denominator (or trends) of each person’s feelings. For example, an IT worker may be regularly distraught by his long working hours and just want it to end. On the other hand, professional individuals may want to get straight to the point as fast as possible to get results as fast as possible. We treat these people as two different personas that we should cater to.

You will make a persona that has:

• A photo: To make sure that this user can be visualized in a.. uh.. visual way
• A name: To make the persona closer and more comfortable to work with
• A description: What is she/he like? Small details very welcome.
• His/her objective: What he/she intends to do with this application.

But why do we need all this? Well a persona is a person and too often we become detached from the people that we are actually making the program for. Making a persona ensures that we always have “somebody” to serve as a benchmark to depend on without annoying a lot of people with continuous interviews or questionnaires, doubly good when integrated with Agile.

Is that it?

Unfortunately no. Although you are targeting a market group, you are still bound by a leash (or a contract) to whoever you work for. Changes that are too drastic may need consultation before implementation (even if it is just front-end materials).

Constant communications with the client is vital if you want to get anything done right.

Our Personas

Sapphira Halihi:

Robert Hadi: Our ops team persona

But how did we make them?

Well, we know our markets and just by a little bit of research we can create these people. Ask yourself who would be buying groceries, who would be working in an ops team. Answering these questions and extrapolating their behavior is what led us to these personas.

Final Thoughts

Personas are a great way to make sure that there is always “someone” watching us work and making sure that we always head to the right direction. A static perspective really ensures that we get whatever it is we are targeting and is deviating as little as possible from the market.