How to create personas
The following is a quick guide to the most pertinent issues to consider when developing personas:
- Create a narrative - ideally, a one to two-page narrative description for each persona
- Be specific - identify workflow and daily behavioural patterns, using specific details, not generalities. Detail two or three technical skills to give an idea of computer competency
- Create mnemonic triggers - include one or two fictional details about the persona's life, e.g. an interest or a habit that make each persona unique and memorable
- Use your imagination - don't use someone you actually know as a persona. Try instead to create a composite based on the qualitative data you have captured
- Strive for novelty - don't recycle a persona from a previous project for a new project. Instead, do your ethnography properly and create new personas for each project
- Keep the numbers low - keep the number of personas created for a project relatively small. Usually between three and seven secondary personas, depending on the interface project, from which will emerge the primary persona
- Be realistic - strive to develop a believable archetype so the design team will accept the persona
Look out for ...
The following are all pre-requisites of a persona description:
- Name, age, marital status, gender
- Personal information, including family and home life
- Photo(s)
- Work environment, tools used and the conditions worked under
- Computer proficiency and comfort level with using the Web
- Needs, frustrations and attitudes
- Motivation or "trigger" for using a high-tech product (not just tasks, but end results)
- Information-seeking habits and favourite resources
- Personal and professional goals
- Candid quotes
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