How To Create A User Persona (Video Guide)
Summary
TLDRIn this informative video, Cicely Rose from CareerFoundry introduces user personas as a vital tool in UX design. She explains that personas are realistic portrayals of target users, derived from research, and embodying their needs, behaviors, and pain points. The video outlines a step-by-step process for creating personas, emphasizing their role in guiding design decisions and fostering empathy within multidisciplinary teams. It highlights the importance of focusing on significant user groups and pain points to design products that are truly useful, desirable, and valuable.
Takeaways
- 🧑 User personas are fictional yet realistic portrayals of a target user for a product, representing an entire group or audience of users.
- 🔍 Creating user personas starts with conducting user research and building empathy to understand user needs, goals, behaviors, and pain points.
- 📝 A user persona document includes a fictional name, image, and details that make the persona feel real, like preferences and dislikes relevant to the product.
- 📊 Demographic information in a persona is based on factual data and includes personal background, professional background, user environment, and psychographics.
- 🎯 User personas help in establishing a clear problem statement by understanding the users' needs and are crucial for designing useful, desirable, and valuable products.
- 💡 Personas act as a reference point throughout the design process, ensuring that every feature is designed with the user in mind.
- 👥 They are beneficial for strategizing and making smart design decisions, making real users memorable for the product team and building empathy.
- 📈 Personas help answer key questions about the ideal user, their behavior patterns, needs, goals, and pain points within a given context.
- 📚 The persona defining process involves four steps: adding a header, demographic profile, end goals, and a scenario describing the user's interaction with the product.
- 📝 The scenario is a 'day in the life' narrative written from the persona's perspective, illustrating how they would use the product to achieve their end goal.
- ✂️ When creating user personas, focus on details that influence the design and avoid including irrelevant information.
Q & A
What is a user persona?
-A user persona is a fictional but realistic portrayal of a target user for a product, representing an entire group or audience of users.
Why are user personas necessary in UX design?
-User personas help to clarify who the product is being designed for, ensuring that every feature and function is created with the user in mind. They help in strategizing, making design decisions, and building empathy with real users.
What are the main components included in a user persona document?
-A user persona document includes an image, a fictional name, a summary quote, demographic information, user environment details, psychographics, end goals, and a scenario.
How do you gather information to create a user persona?
-Information for creating a user persona is gathered through user research, which includes both quantitative and qualitative data. This data is then organized into persona groups that represent ideal customers.
What should you focus on when dividing data into persona groups?
-When dividing data into persona groups, focus on the major needs of the most important user group, and avoid trying to cater to everyone. Concentrate on one specific user group and one significant pain point.
What demographic details are included in a user persona?
-Demographic details in a user persona include personal background (such as age, gender, education, persona group, and family status), professional background (occupation, income level, work experience), user environment, and psychographics.
What is the purpose of the user environment section in a user persona?
-The user environment section answers questions about the physical, social, and technological context of the user, such as the devices they use, their work environment, and how often they collaborate with others.
What kind of information is included in the psychographic profile of a user persona?
-The psychographic profile includes the user's attitudes, interests, motivations, and pain points, helping to understand why the user behaves in a certain way and why they use the product.
What is the end goal in a user persona, and why is it important?
-The end goal is the motivating factor that inspires action and focuses on what the users want or need to accomplish when using the product. It is important because it drives the design decisions to meet user needs effectively.
What is a scenario in a user persona, and how is it structured?
-A scenario is a day-in-the-life narrative that describes how the persona would interact with the product in a particular context to achieve their end goal. It defines when, where, and how the interaction takes place, written from the persona's perspective.
Outlines
🎯 Introduction to User Personas
Cicely Rose introduces the concept of user personas in the design process, emphasizing their importance in creating effective UX designs. A user persona is a realistic portrayal of a target user, encapsulating their needs, goals, behaviors, and characteristics based on user research. These personas serve as a reference point throughout the design process, ensuring that every feature is user-centric. They are crucial for problem-solving, strategic decision-making, and fostering empathy within the product team. The video promises to guide viewers through a step-by-step process to define their own user personas.
📝 The Persona Defining Process
The video script outlines a four-step process for defining user personas. It begins with the need for extensive research to represent real users accurately. The gathered data is organized into persona groups, which are then refined into individual personas. Each persona starts with a header, including a name, image, and a quote that captures their essence. The persona is further detailed with demographic information divided into personal background, professional background, user environment, and psychographics. This information provides a realistic foundation for the persona, allowing the design team to empathize and focus on the user's needs. The process continues with defining the user's end goals and crafting a scenario that illustrates how the persona interacts with the product to achieve these goals.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡User Persona
💡UX Design
💡Demographic Profile
💡Persona Group
💡Empathy
💡Problem Statement
💡Multidisciplinary Teams
💡End Goal
💡Scenario
💡Psychographics
💡Northstar
Highlights
User personas are a crucial part of the design process, representing a realistic portrayal of a target user for a product.
Personas help in understanding user needs, goals, behavior patterns, and pain points gathered from user research.
A user persona embodies everything learned from the research phase, serving as a guide for UX design decisions.
UX design focuses on solving real user problems, and personas help establish a clear problem statement.
Personas clarify who the design is for and ensure every feature is user-centric.
They aid in strategizing and making smart design decisions by keeping the product team focused on the user.
User personas answer key questions about the ideal user, their behavior, needs, and pain points.
Personas are essential for designing products that are useful, desirable, and valuable to the target audience.
Designers often work in multidisciplinary teams, and personas help communicate user research findings effectively.
The persona defining process involves four simple steps to create a fully-formed persona.
Conducting sufficient research is a prerequisite for defining user personas that represent real human users.
Data from research should be organized into persona groups representing ideal customers.
Focus on one specific user group and one significant pain point when creating personas.
The first step in defining a persona is adding a header with a fictional name, image, and summary quote.
Demographic details are essential for creating a realistic persona profile, divided into personal, professional, user environment, and psychographics.
Psychographic information helps understand user attitudes, interests, motivations, and pain points.
End goals define what users want or need to accomplish when using the product.
A scenario describes how the persona would interact with the product to achieve their end goal.
When creating personas, focus on details that influence the final design and avoid irrelevant information.
Transcripts
Hi I'm Cicely Rose a student advisor here at CareerFoundry today I'm going to talk you through
a very important part of the design process user personas first I'll explain exactly what a user
persona is then we'll look at why user personas are necessary and how they help you design awesome
products I'll then show you how to define your own user personas following a simple step by
step process by the end of this video you'll understand the role that user personas play in
the UX design process and you'll have a method you can follow to create your own ready let's
begin so what exactly is a user persona quite simply a persona is a fictional but realistic
portrayal of a target user for your product each persona represents an entire group or audience of
users as a UX designer you'll start the design process by conducting user research building
empathy with your target users and identifying exactly what they need from the product you're
designing a user persona embodies everything you learn from the research phase user needs and goals
behavior patterns pain points and any noteworthy user characteristics you'll present your persona
in a document like the example shown on the screen right now you can include an image and a made-up
name together with fictional details that help to build up your persona and make them feel real if
you're designing a holiday booking app for example you might mention that your persona loves luxury
spa retreats but hates all-inclusive dining you will also add demographic information based on
factual data gathered as part of your use of research quotes from real users can also help
to paint a vivid picture of your target user now we know what our persona is let's consider why
you need one in the first place UX design is all about solving a real user problem but you can't
do that until you've established a clear problem statement to write a meaningful problem statement
you first need to understand your use and their needs whether you're developing an app a website
or a service it's crucial to understand who will be using it a user persona clarifies exactly
who you're designing for it acts as a point of reference throughout the entire process making
sure that every single feature or function you design is done so with the user in mind
personas help with strategizing and making smart design decisions they make real users memorable
for the product team helping to focus efforts and build empathy a persona helps to answer the
following questions who is my ideal user or customer what behavior patterns do my users
currently exhibit what are the needs and goals of my users what issues and pain points do they
currently face within the given context so in a nutshell user personas are crucial if you want
to design something that's useful desirable and valuable to your target audience a solid
user persona is your Northstar guiding your design decisions from start to finish not only that most
designers work in multidisciplinary teams where it's important to communicate your findings from
the user research stage personas encompass all the essential details about your users
presenting them in a memorable way that everyone can understand not just designers so you must get
your personas right and I'm going to show you how with introductions out of the way let's get stuck
into the persona defining process we've broken it down into four simple steps and I'm going to
talk you through each one you'll have a fully formed persona in no time before you can start
defining your user personas you'll need to have conducted plenty of research your persona needs
to represent real human users after all so you need to have gathered sufficient quantitative
and qualitative data you will organize all this information into persona groups that represent
your ideal customers these persona groups will then be consolidated into single user personas
and that's what we'll focus on shortly a word of advice when dividing up your data into persona
groups remember to focus on the major needs of the most important user group you can't
be everything to everyone so don't even try do one thing and do it well in other words focus on
one specific user group and one significant pain point so you've got your user groups and you're
ready to turn them into user personas open up a blank word doc and let's get started the first
step in the process is to add a header to your persona this includes a fictional name an image
and a quote that summarizes what matters most to your persona in relation to your product so the
foundations of your persona might go something like this named Savannah Rodriguez image this
cheerful looking stock lady summary quote take me to undiscovered holiday destinations away from the
tourist traps this first step might seem simple but these features ensure that your persona is
memorable keeping the design team focused on who they're designing for now we're going to add some
factual detail to your persona we're going to add a demographic profile demographic details
are based on user research and the demographic profile of your persona can be divided into four
main sections personal background professional background user environment and psychographics
the personal background section includes details such as age gender education persona group and
family status so if Savannah's personal background might look something like this
Savannah 52 years old divorced mother of two has a master's degree in chemistry professional
background includes details such as professional occupation income level and work experience here
we might add that Savannah works full-time at a pharmaceuticals company and earns around 65,000
per year next you'll add details regarding the user environment the user environment represents
the physical social and technological context of the user the purpose of this section is to answer
questions such as what technological devices do users have access to do they spend most of their
time in a corporate office or at home how often do we collaborate with others so Savannah's user
environment could be in her office mostly on a laptop but also on her iPad when commuting to
and from work then we come to the psychographic section this is where you're linked with details
such as the users attitudes interests motivations and pain points creating a psychographic profile
enables you to better understand why your user behaves in a certain way including why they use
your product let's continue to imagine you're designing a holiday booking app some useful
psychographic information to include in your user persona could be Savannah enjoys luxurious
pirate Ruiz hates tourist traps appreciates an element of exclusivity enjoys trying open tech
local cuisine prefers to travel alone or with one other person tends to favor quality over economy
can you see how your user persona is starting to come to life creating a demographic profile adds
a layer of realism to your persona which makes it easier to fill that all-important empathy
when designing for their needs the next step in the process is to add some information about the
users end goals the end goal is the motivating factor that inspires action and focuses on what
the users want or need to accomplish when using your product so in Savannah's case her end goal
when using your holiday booking app is to discover and book luxurious off-the-beaten-track holiday
destinations the fourth and final step when defining a user persona is to add a scenario the
scenario is the day in the life narrative that describes how your persona would interact with
your product in a particular context to achieve their end goal when writing a scenario define
when where and how the narrative takes place and write it from the personas perspective for example
Savannah's scenario could start off like this at least once a year I like to go away on a luxury
holiday I tried to discover places I've never been to before and to stick to destinations that
aren't yet overrun with tourists I work full time so I don't have that much time to browse
and book each individual element of my holiday ideally I'll find some kind of package deal that
comes with local restaurant recommendations so there you have it your kickstart guide
to defining a user persona when creating user personas remember to focus on the context of
the product you're designing while you do want to build up a realistic character there's no need to
include pointless details that won't influence the final design if you're designing a holiday
booking app it doesn't make sense to include information on Savannah's favorite TV programs
or what football team she supports so only include details that serve a design purpose if you enjoyed
this video don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel and remember you'll find loads
more information over on the CareerFoundry blog thanks for watching see you next time
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