To persona, or not to persona
Often, when creating digital products, UX designers or user researcher might create some ‘user personas’. I won’t be talking about how to make them in this article, that needs a separate piece. This is personas 101.
What’s a persona, then?
Personas are little hypothetical (nay, imaginary) people that are usually created by designers or researchers. They represent one or more of our user groups (people who might use our thing).
Creating personas, giving them names, I’m going to use John and Jane from now on, and a bit of a back story can be really useful.
What are personas used for?
You can use them to walk through the service and test a user story is fit for that persona, that’s the obvious bit. Handily, you can also add little details to the persona which might effect the way they use the thing, such as age, digital competence (if it’s a digital thing), access needs, disabilities…there are loads of things. For example; if Jane doesn’t shop online because she’s cautious of identity theft, will she like giving us her email address and phone number?
Personas, the good bits 👍
Personas are a great way to make sure the major user groups are catered for. Although people often have 3 or so personas, there’s no reason you couldn’t have more.
Whenever a design is due to be worked on or signed off,a story is ready to be marked as done or content is about to be written or tested, you can check that everything is going to be good for John and Jane. You know them well, you understand their wants and needs and you know what they need to achieve.
Personas, the bad bits 👎
Personas don’t cover the edge cases. At Jaguar Land Rover there is a saying which goes “We’re not designing a car for Coventry” — Coventry being the city the plant is based in. I’ve tried to recreate that elsewhere but can’t get it to work, but the basic subtext is that you need to remember there are edge cases, access needs, people who don’t speak your language, all of whom might end up using the thing you make.
Another risk with personas is involvement from the oft-feared ‘business person’
Business Person , noun — A team member who represents business interests. Their views are valid too, designers!
Team members have different interests, and the person responsible for the
¥£$ might be more interested in the creation of a persona that suits them. Maybe it’s the most valued customer, the one who pays the most, or the one the business wants to impress. Personas being designed to cater for these ulterior motives can happen quicker than a slight of hand robbery in an 18th century London market, so watch out!
So, do we use them?
This bit is up to you. For me, personally, I think the benefits outweigh the risks, so I use personas but never let myself forget that they’re not a cure-all solution. Each project will differ, so introduce personas slowly and see how it goes, and don’t forget they’re a double-edged sword.
