I'm in the process of redesigning a website and am at that point
where, after collecting all my initial research, am writing a
series of user personas. I thought I'd share with you what I think
makes a good persona.
A persona is a document that describes ways in which types of
users will use your service. In design circles, a persona is
essentially an archetypal representation of a user. Alan
Cooper solidified the idea into a design philosophy in 1995,
and designers have been using it to improve their user experience
ever since.
an archetypal representation of a user
A persona has two main goals:
- To help make design decisions
- To remind you that you are designing for real people with real
goals and frustrations
A good persona is based on the tasks,
behaviours and attitudes of your users. You must
understand these before attempting to write a persona.
Avoid using comic names, joke or stock photography and long
narratives in your personas. You want a project team to take your
personas seriously and actually use and reference them in design
conversations. Try to use names of real users, take photos of your
users in the action of completing tasks relevant to your intended
user journey where possible (if not use icons) and keep
the description of the user to the tasks in hand.
Here is an example of one of my personas for my project. Jeremy
is a GP:
Suggested reading: Communicating the User Experience - A
Practical Guide for Creating Useful UX Documentation. Richard
Caddick and Steve Cable.