User Personas that are living and breathing

A persona is, in my opinion, best described as a picture of a product’s or service’s intended audience. But let’s take a look at some of the definitions I consumed before coming up with my own.

Personas should be created in a way that appears there is a real person behind the name, face, and tales even when they do not depict a real person.

Personas are “…representations of your users and a mix of wants, desires, and pain points of these groups,” according to Nikki Anderson in her book A 5-Step Framework to Building Better Personas.

The many individuals who currently use or will utilize your goods are the categories she is referring to. Sometimes these people fall into a single category, and other times they are so diverse that you may require 2–4 personas, especially if your firm or business offers a variety of solutions.

Why are Personas Important?

Personas are a crucial tool in user experience design. “Personas assist a product team identify the answer to one of their most critical questions, “Who are we developing for?”,” says Nick Babich in a post on the Adobe Blog. A product may be designed that will meet consumers’ demands and be successful if the target users’ expectations, worries, and motivations are understood.

What personas do is as follows:

Get your user research documented in an easily readable graphic style.

Develop user empathy and make sure the target audience’s demands are given top priority during the design process.

guide, educate, and defend design decisions

Make it clear to people who you are creating for

Bring Your Persona to Live

The user persona in your design file shouldn’t be a static document or rectangle. Your persona should be changed to reflect your growth and the acquisition of fresh user data.

It shouldn’t take five years to implement these upgrades. They ought to be an ongoing, unending process.

Every day, humans develop, alter, and adapt to new circumstances. Also, your personas should (Well maybe not every day, but as often as needed).

Twenty years ago, UX designers employed design software tools that weren’t always easy to use, quick, or intuitive. In order to generate high-quality work, designers had to put in a lot more time, concentration, and other resources.

However, today’s UX designers have access to excellent software that is simple to use and intuitive. There is less emphasis on the designer now than there was twenty years ago.

In light of this, a character created 20 years ago would not accurately define a designer today. While there are additional examples with a shorter span, that is a gap of twenty years.

Most people’s pre-pandemic characteristics would not exactly match their current characteristics. More people started washing their hands, utilizing video conferencing technologies, and using their gadgets. The majority of students who were only undergraduates at the time learned digital skills, obtained remote employment, and generally experimented a lot — especially in nations like Nigeria where state colleges did not provide virtual learning at the time.

All these modifications brought on by the epidemic may influence how people engage with your product. If your identity still says what it said before the epidemic, you might wish to check if the information is still true.

When to Update your Persona

According to research by the Nielsen Norman Group, UX designers who updated their personas on a quarterly basis saw an improvement in the final product’s user experience.

Adopting a quarterly review plan paid beneficial for many projects, according to the research paper. These patterns imply that teams who maintain their personas see their projects as more effective in enhancing the user experience of their finished products than teams who do not.

Consider upgrading personas as needed if updating them quarterly could be too much for you and the firm. The following situations call for updating your persona:

1. As you receive new data on your users.

I often start my investigation with an archetype (proto persona in this case). I revise this persona to reflect the information I’ve since learned after conducting study.

Every test can provide a fresh opportunity to update your persona with the information you’ve just acquired if you use lean approaches to your business or process and test with consumers often.

Sometimes it involves adding to existing knowledge based on fresh insights rather than altering it.

When you have the chance to connect with people and observe their behavior while using your product, sit back and look for any fresh information that may be used to improve your character.

2. After major changes in the industry your target users operate in

To spot developments that can have a beneficial or bad effect on your users’ life, you should keep an eye on what’s happening in the sector in which they work.

This modification may be general or sector-specific. One other good illustration is the epidemic. It allowed for much more remote work, particularly in the computer industry. As a result, the ordinary worker who used to commute to work every day by bus or Uber now works from home. That’s a significant shift that may have an effect on your users and the way you design for them.

3. When the business or business goals have changed

After a few years, you can decide to change your mind about the direction the company is taking. The folks you were previously serving might not always be your objective in this situation. You must therefore do so.

What’s that saying about fresh wine in old wineskins? Do not merely move with an old identity. Find out if your persona needs to be modified by doing some study.

As a person, you constantly discover new things about yourself. You could discover a new interest or personality feature. Other times, your opinions on particular issues evolve. You may increase your income from $10,000 to $100,000. A $100k income might potentially lead to bankruptcy. People evolve. Personas should follow suit.

A persona must adopt certain human characteristics in order to be a true reflection of real people. similar to breathing and life.