Why persona profiles improve teams communication

Sure, personas are not accurate. And they could be a waste of time when over-designed. But that’s not the point. They are research artifacts to show customers context and needs to facilitate communication among teams.

Using personas help teams to:

• Be focused on real needs according certain customer journeys.
• Have open discussions in terms of a third person’s goals. “Does this design meet the persona needs?” sounds more productive than “Can we make this bigger?” or “Will this provide more conversions?”.
• Prioritize delivery so you can test, verify and rethink solutions, instead of wasting time on polishing features before the release.

Remember, you’re not designing for an imaginary friend. You design to deliver verified solutions to customer problems. That’s why customers buy your product, they don’t care about the company or team’s methodologies.