Personas Articles & Videos

  • Statistically-Generated Personas

    Personas are usually a qualitative element in the UX design process, but statistical data from more users can be added for more precision, as long as the personas are still grounded in qualitative insights.

  • Scenario Mapping: Design Ideation Using Personas

    Persona-based scenarios can be leveraged to influence design through guided brainstorming workshops called scenario-mapping workshops.

  • How to Choose the Scope of Your Personas

    Personas are not "one size fits all" in the UX design process. Broad-scope personas work for high-level divisions but are too shallow for detailed design decisions.

  • 5 Types of E-commerce Shoppers

    Extensive user research with people shopping online identified 5 main types of behavior: product-focused, browsing, researchers, bargain-hunters, and one-time shoppers. Each user type benefits from different UX elements.

  • 3 Persona Types: Lightweight, Qualitative, and Statistical

    For most teams, approaching persona creation qualitatively is the right balance of effort vs. value, but very large or very small organizations might benefit from statistical or lightweight approaches, respectively.

  • Just-Right Personas: How to Choose the Scope of Your Personas

    Narrow- and broad-scope personas achieve different goals. Success depends on knowing the tradeoffs and structuring personas’ scope based on your end goal.

  • Scenario Mapping for Design Exploration

    When you are in the early stages of designing a user experience flow, use scenario mapping to work out how different personas will use the proposed design to solve their tasks.

  • ‘Our Users Are Everyone’: Designing Mass-Market Products for Large User Audiences

    Even if your target demographics are very broad, you should still identify specific groups of users within that audience to use for UX research and design.

  • 6 Rules for Persuasive Storytelling

    Stories build empathy and make the user needs and pain points memorable to your team. Effective stories speak the language of the audience, are rooted in data, and take advantage of compelling artifacts.

  • Why Personas Fail

    How to overcome common challenges in employing personas in UX design projects, including stakeholders who don't understand the value of approximated data or conversely press for over-generalized personas.

  • Jobs-to-Be-Done vs. Personas

    Jobs-to-be-done and personas are tools that identify user needs and attitudes. Each tool focuses on different aspects of the use experience and are compatible.

  • Creating Personas Is Like Sorting Rocks

    Analyzing data to identify meaningful segments of users is the most difficult part of persona creation. In this video we'll discuss how to look for similarities in various attributes using something much more straightforward than people: rocks!

  • Choosing the Right UX Deliverable Template

    Don’t let UX deliverable templates become a crutch. Adapt deliverables to unique situations and stakeholder needs.

  • Why Personas Fail

    Personas are useful tools for UX work, so why do they often fail? Find out what pitfalls cause personas to fail, and how to avoid and overcome them.

  • Bringing Personas to Agile

    Kim discusses ways to fit personas in Agile environments.

  • Personas vs. Jobs-to-Be-Done

    Jobs-to-be-done focus on user problems and needs, while well-executed personas include the same information and also add behavioral and attitudinal details.

  • What Are Personas and Why Should I Care?

    Personas can humanize complex data and help give UX design teams a consistent focus and design target.

  • Are Your Personas Outdated? Know When It’s Right To Revise

    Up-to-date personas result in a better UX design process. Data from 156 companies provide a baseline to understand how often to revise personas. Knowing when and how frequently to make updates will help you craft personas that are both accurate and effective.

  • What Spoilers Teach Us About Designing for Different User Tasks

    Designers must aim to understand and accommodate different user goals. When accommodations aren’t feasible, choose designs that support the most common user scenarios. For example, subscribers to online TV streaming services have different viewing preferences, and designs need to take those into consideration.

  • How Much Time Does It Take to Create Personas?

    The size of the company and the approach taken influence the time needed to create personas, ranging from 23–103 staff hours across 216 companies.

  • Statistically-Generated Personas

    Personas are usually a qualitative element in the UX design process, but statistical data from more users can be added for more precision, as long as the personas are still grounded in qualitative insights.

  • How to Choose the Scope of Your Personas

    Personas are not "one size fits all" in the UX design process. Broad-scope personas work for high-level divisions but are too shallow for detailed design decisions.

  • 5 Types of E-commerce Shoppers

    Extensive user research with people shopping online identified 5 main types of behavior: product-focused, browsing, researchers, bargain-hunters, and one-time shoppers. Each user type benefits from different UX elements.

  • Scenario Mapping for Design Exploration

    When you are in the early stages of designing a user experience flow, use scenario mapping to work out how different personas will use the proposed design to solve their tasks.

  • Why Personas Fail

    How to overcome common challenges in employing personas in UX design projects, including stakeholders who don't understand the value of approximated data or conversely press for over-generalized personas.

  • Jobs-to-Be-Done vs. Personas

    Jobs-to-be-done and personas are tools that identify user needs and attitudes. Each tool focuses on different aspects of the use experience and are compatible.

  • Creating Personas Is Like Sorting Rocks

    Analyzing data to identify meaningful segments of users is the most difficult part of persona creation. In this video we'll discuss how to look for similarities in various attributes using something much more straightforward than people: rocks!

  • Choosing the Right UX Deliverable Template

    Don’t let UX deliverable templates become a crutch. Adapt deliverables to unique situations and stakeholder needs.

  • Bringing Personas to Agile

    Kim discusses ways to fit personas in Agile environments.

  • What Are Personas and Why Should I Care?

    Personas can humanize complex data and help give UX design teams a consistent focus and design target.

  • Scenario Mapping: Design Ideation Using Personas

    Persona-based scenarios can be leveraged to influence design through guided brainstorming workshops called scenario-mapping workshops.

  • 3 Persona Types: Lightweight, Qualitative, and Statistical

    For most teams, approaching persona creation qualitatively is the right balance of effort vs. value, but very large or very small organizations might benefit from statistical or lightweight approaches, respectively.

  • Just-Right Personas: How to Choose the Scope of Your Personas

    Narrow- and broad-scope personas achieve different goals. Success depends on knowing the tradeoffs and structuring personas’ scope based on your end goal.

  • ‘Our Users Are Everyone’: Designing Mass-Market Products for Large User Audiences

    Even if your target demographics are very broad, you should still identify specific groups of users within that audience to use for UX research and design.

  • 6 Rules for Persuasive Storytelling

    Stories build empathy and make the user needs and pain points memorable to your team. Effective stories speak the language of the audience, are rooted in data, and take advantage of compelling artifacts.

  • Why Personas Fail

    Personas are useful tools for UX work, so why do they often fail? Find out what pitfalls cause personas to fail, and how to avoid and overcome them.

  • Personas vs. Jobs-to-Be-Done

    Jobs-to-be-done focus on user problems and needs, while well-executed personas include the same information and also add behavioral and attitudinal details.

  • Are Your Personas Outdated? Know When It’s Right To Revise

    Up-to-date personas result in a better UX design process. Data from 156 companies provide a baseline to understand how often to revise personas. Knowing when and how frequently to make updates will help you craft personas that are both accurate and effective.

  • What Spoilers Teach Us About Designing for Different User Tasks

    Designers must aim to understand and accommodate different user goals. When accommodations aren’t feasible, choose designs that support the most common user scenarios. For example, subscribers to online TV streaming services have different viewing preferences, and designs need to take those into consideration.

  • How Much Time Does It Take to Create Personas?

    The size of the company and the approach taken influence the time needed to create personas, ranging from 23–103 staff hours across 216 companies.

  • Personas Make Users Memorable for Product Team Members

    When based on user research, personas support user-centered design throughout a project’s lifecycle by making characteristics of key user segments more salient.

  • Segment Analytics Data Using Personas

    Persona-inspired segments can be used in website analytics to uncover trends in data and derive UX insights. Better than (a) lumping everybody together or (b) segmenting on demographics that don't relate to user behavior.

  • Designing for 5 Types of E-Commerce Shoppers

    Considering e-commerce shoppers’ motivations and habits when they come to a site can help designers make decisions that improve overall site usability while supporting users’ needs.