Making your users come to life

Personas are documents that demonstrate your different user groups’ profiles. A persona represents a set of users who are carrying out the same task or are from the same demographic grouping.

Demonstrating your different customer profiles

Personas facilitate discussion between stakeholders about their users’ needs. Typically, every team member will have copies of the personas and will refer to them throughout a problem, and ask themselves and other team members about whether or not their product is meeting the users’ needs: ‘Would Caroline be able to use this?’

Your users are people

Personas help everyone on a team to remember that the users of their products are real individuals who have needs and requirements. The level of fidelity used on a persona will vary. Some are minimal – featuring a name, picture, and rough description of the tasks those users carry out. Richer, more detailed personas may have more in-depth information about the individual, such as background, lifestyle and personal life.