Today I built a User Persona (of me).
Alan Cooper first described User Personas in his 1998 book "The Inmates Are Running the Asylum". Cooper created these personas based on interviews with seven or eight users.
"Personas are not real people, but they represent them throughout the design process. They are hypothetical archetypes of actual users. [...] Personas are defined by their goals." - Alan Cooper, The Inmates Are Running the Asylum
Personas give project stakeholders a common ground when discussing the design of the software's user interface. I've heard that successful teams even refer to their User Personas as if they are real people: "What would Joe Smith do?"
This article 20 must-see user persona templates lists some best practices for User Personas and shows off 20 great examples. I also found browsing through User Personas on Dribbble very inspiring.
My persona is me, obviously, and for my purposes, that's okay. As I create a small project where I'm the only user, it's impossible to interview a group and distill the interviews into User Personas.
I found the exercise useful regardless. A few of my thoughts when creating a User Persona:
- You'll have more data than you need. Not every detail will be useful for the project. I didn't feel there was much benefit to include most demographics I've seen on other User Personas for a todo app.
- Use a real name for your persona yet a stock photo. The persona is not an actual person but should feel like one. That's why I chose that fabricated "John Uhri" guy and a dashingly handsome photo ;-)
- A quote is cute but also useful. I struggled a bit to come up with a quote, but it gives context to the persona.
- Goals, Motivations, and Challenges are three valuable sections. While these sections are sometimes titled differently, the information provided in them are essential.
- Adding a Job Story gives an excellent foothold for discussions.
I created my User Persona in Figma. Feel free to borrow, adapt, and remix.