Why Do Personas Matter?
No matter what you are building and who you are selling. Some humans are always behind the software. So, personas help place people at the center of design It is very important to empathize and define the users and customers. Starting with people and empathizing helps the team. While deliberating with the team it always helps what kind of personas to concentrate and what kind of use cases to look for. And prioritize who to design for. It gives a common language when talking about users’ needs for our product. It helps in taking certain decisions when there is a difference of opinion in a team.
It is always important to collect data about what people actually do with the product, and analyze. It helps to educate us to a team. My personal experience says no two people are the same and have the same goals. However, similarities are far greater than the differences, and across everything, you can imagine — race, age, gender and so on. While best-in-class personas focus on goals as well as attributes, the reality is that most personas focus on attributes alone. More often than not, I have seen Personas explain who people are and what people do. But they never fully explain why people do something in a particular way. And it very important to consider to understand why people do things in a particular way. Personas should drive a stronger connection to actual users of a product. Personas are laborious to create. Personas artificially should not constrain the total market for your product. It should be tested against the assumptions at your target market and updated.
Personas definitions may contain markets segments demographics, like/dislikes, unique behavior. But those are not super important. And one should stay away with such things as it does not represent broader personas. These are good stories to inform a team. But those are not unique to define your personas.
For Personas, it is important to understand what their needs are and why they need and when they need? What concerns they have? What is that it keeps them awake in the night? What are their behaviors like what they act upon? Who is working with them? What are their anxieties and concerns? What industry constraints they have? What causes them to trigger? What are their goals and motivations? What are their KPIs? What are their major requirements?
Most often I am asked for
How many personas’s should you have? There is no such limit. But always limit beyond 3 becomes is hard to manage.
Which persona is the most important? This is something you and your team should decide.
Can my persona change over time? Yes. As you begin testing assumptions around your persona, you will learn things that will cause you to change which persona you focus on.
Do you suggest any particular template? There are many templates out there if you search in the net. I have used different formats in my career. I don’t recommend any particular. I feel it is fine as long as the points I explained above are covered in whatever format they are.