Persona

Purpose

A Persona is a fictional but research-grounded character that represents a key user or customer segment. By giving abstract demographics a name, face, goals, frustrations, and context, teams make better design and business decisions because they’re designing for a specific human — not a vague “user.”

At a glance

• Group size: 3–8
• Duration: 45 minutes
• Difficulty: Intermediate
• Facilitation style: Research synthesis, collaborative creation
• Setting: In-person or virtual

How to run

1. Review research (10 min). Share existing user research, interview quotes, survey data, or analytics. Identify 2–4 distinct user segments.
2. Choose a segment (3 min). Select one segment to build a persona for. (Repeat the exercise for additional segments.)
3. Fill in the persona canvas (20 min). Collaboratively complete:

• Name, age, photo (stock image or sketch)
• Job title and context
• Goals (what they’re trying to achieve)
• Frustrations (what blocks them)
• Behaviours (how they currently handle the task)
• Preferred tools and channels
• A representative quote

1. Validate and challenge (7 min). Ask: Does this feel real? Are we projecting our own biases? Does research support each claim?
2. Publish (5 min). Print or share the persona card. Post it where the team can see it daily.

Materials needed

• Persona canvas template (poster or digital)
• User research data
• Stock photos or sketching supplies
• Markers

Pitfalls & common mistakes

• Inventing without data. Personas built on assumptions reinforce biases. Ground every attribute in research.
• Creating too many personas. 3–5 is the practical limit for a team to remember and use.
• Shelf-ware personas. If the persona isn’t referenced in design reviews and sprint planning, it’s decoration.

Inclusion & accessibility

• Represent diverse demographics in your personas — not all personas should look like your team.
• Consider accessibility needs as a persona attribute (e.g., screen reader user, low bandwidth).
• Share persona documents in accessible formats (not just images).

Variations

• Proto-persona: Quick, assumption-based version when no research is available yet. Mark it as hypothesis.
• Negative persona: Define who you are NOT designing for to sharpen focus.
• Jobs-to-be-Done persona: Focus on the job the user is hiring your product to do.

When NOT to use this

• When you have direct, continuous access to real users and can test with them directly.
• When the user base is so homogeneous that a persona would be trivially obvious.

Source & further reading

• Cooper, A. (1999). *The Inmates Are Running the Asylum.* Sams Publishing.
• Pruitt, J. & Adlin, T. (2006). *The Persona Lifecycle.* Morgan Kaufmann.