Created as a communication tool during the design of a product/service, they are archetypes based on behavioural modules, observed during the user investigation process. Alan Cooper is the father of this method.
When we design a service, we always need to remember that it must adapt to the person who will use it, and not vice versa. Through Personas, we get to know more about the way users think and communicate: how they behave, how they think, what they want to do and why they are doing it.
Personas are used in order to correctly identify important and significant user behavioural models and to determine how this behaviour is translated into archetypes that precisely represent the group of users identified.
A bit of history
In 1999, Alan Cooper, founder of Cooper, one of the leading companies in user experience design, introduced the notion of “Personas” in the book The Inmates Are Running the Asylum, a method proposed within the user centered design philosophy.
In other words, Personas are an imaginary but concrete representation of the group of users for which the product/service is designed.
The word ‘Persona’
Without going into too much detail about how the Personas method is implemented, it is worth remembering the cultural significance of the word persona. Persona means the aspects of the character or personality of an individual who has or is perceived by others.
Observing the real world
Cooper underlines that the observation of people, like every representation model, must be based on the observation of the real world.
The main sources of data used for summarizing personas come from research performed through ethnographic techniques.
There are other methods and data that can be integrated into the creation of Personas:
- Interviews with real users outside their context of use
- Information provided by client’s users, stakeholders and domain experts
- Market research data, such as focus groups and surveys
- Market segmentation models
- Information collected from literature and previous studies
However, none of this additional information can be taken in the place of direct interviews with users and observation Almost all the aspects of a well-designed Persona are based on the declarations and behaviour of real users in their context of use.
Conclusion
Personas are an excellent tool within the user centered design philosophy which, when managed professionally, contributes significantly to the product development process. Learning the method, and believing in it, means contributing to designing a better user experience.
Not even the most disciplined user centered and goal directed designer can be completely impartial. As professionals we all use our best judgement (based on knowledge of the domain and competitive markets, work experience) to make decisions. But some of us do so from a less objective point of view than others. Personas help to keep designers aware of designing for others and not for themselves.