A persona is a fictional—but research based—profile of a key customer.
It represents real people’s needs, goals, behaviors, and describes them in a relatable, human-centered way. Personas help teams stay grounded in user perspectives and make design choices that reflect actual experiences—not assumptions.
Best Practices
Avoid assumptions. Ground your persona in data, even if you think you know the audience well.
Capture goals and barriers. Focus on what the persona wants to achieve—and what’s in their way.
Make it relatable. Add a name, photo, and even a quote to bring the persona to life for your team.
Basic Steps
1. Start with real data. Use interviews, surveys, analytics, or feedback to capture real needs and challenges.
2.Find key patterns. Look for common behaviors, frustrations, motivations, and goals across your data.
3. Build the persona. Include a name, photo, job or role, and a brief story that explains what they care about and what gets in their way.
4. Put it to work. Use the persona to guide your design decisions. Ask, “Would this help our persona?” when testing or prioritizing ideas.
Benefits
- Translates data into real, relatable stories to humanize your research
- Keeps focus on what customers need, not what’s easiest to build
- Helps teams prioritize based on user goals and pain points to guide decisions
- Aligns staff and other interested persons, with a shared understanding of the people you serve
Our Recommended Resources
Use personas when you need to summarize research findings in a way that’s easy to remember and apply. They’re especially useful early in the design process, when defining the problem, generating ideas, or prioritizing features and services. Personas keep teams aligned and focused on the real people behind the problem.