How to Choose the Scope of Your Personas

Summary

The script emphasizes the importance of defining the purpose and scope of personas in UX design. It warns against creating generic personas without clear goals, as they may not be effective for specific projects. The speaker illustrates the difference between broad and narrow-scope personas, explaining how broad personas offer shallow insights across various contexts, while narrow personas provide rich, actionable data for targeted decision-making. The key takeaway is to align the scope of personas with their intended use to ensure their usefulness in guiding design and strategy.

Takeaways

• 🚫 Personas should not be a one-size-fits-all solution; they must be tailored to specific goals and contexts.
• 🤔 The creation of personas often lacks direction regarding their purpose, leading to misuse or misalignment with project objectives.
• 🎯 Understanding the purpose of personas is crucial before determining their scope to ensure they serve the intended function.
• 🏦 Example: A financial company might have broad personas for general customer representation or narrow ones for specific product redesigns.
• 📊 Broad-scope personas provide high-level insights but lack detailed, actionable data for specific projects.
• 🔍 Narrow-scope personas offer rich, context-specific data that is vital for targeted decision-making and design.
• ⚖️ There's a trade-off between breadth and depth in persona data; broader personas are less detailed, while narrower ones are more informative for specific tasks.
• 🧠 The context of the product or service significantly influences customers' behaviors and needs, affecting the relevance of persona data.
• 📈 Broad-scope personas are useful for general decisions like marketing tone and educational content, but not for detailed design work.
• 🛠 For effective design and decision-making on specific projects, narrow-scope personas that provide detailed insights into user motivations and behaviors are essential.
• ❓ Always question stakeholders about their goals for personas to ensure they are created with the right scope and purpose in mind.

Q & A

Why can't you create a one-size-fits-all set of personas for different projects?

Creating a one-size-fits-all set of personas is not effective because personas need to be tailored to specific project goals and contexts. Using general archetypes without considering the purpose or scope can lead to irrelevant or ineffective personas for the project at hand.

What is the significance of determining the purpose of personas before creating them?

Determining the purpose of personas is crucial because it guides the scope and the type of data included in the personas. The purpose dictates what the personas will be used for, which in turn influences the richness and relevance of the insights they provide.

How does the scope of personas influence the data they contain?

The scope of personas directly influences the data they contain. Broad-scope personas include more general data that applies to a wide array of contexts, while narrow-scope personas contain more detailed and actionable data specific to a particular project or context.

What is an example of a broad-scope persona and how do they differ from narrow-scope personas?

A broad-scope persona might represent the entire customer base of a financial company across various business units like retirement savings, banking, and mutual fund investing. In contrast, a narrow-scope persona could be created for a specific project, such as redesigning a mobile application for the banking business, focusing on detailed insights relevant to that single context.

Why might broad-scope personas not be suitable for detailed design decisions?

Broad-scope personas are not suitable for detailed design decisions because they contain shallower, more general data that doesn't provide the depth of insight needed for targeted decision making within a specific context.

What are the trade-offs between creating broad and narrow-scope personas?

The trade-off between broad and narrow-scope personas is that broad personas offer a shallower, more general data set that can inform high-level decisions, while narrow-scope personas provide richer, more actionable data that is essential for making detailed design decisions within a specific context.

How do people's behaviors and needs change based on the context of the product or service?

People's behaviors and needs are influenced dramatically by the context of the product or service. Broad-scope personas may find similarities across a range of products and services, but they require more general attributes to describe them, whereas narrow-scope personas can focus on specific motivations, attitudes, and behaviors relevant to the product or project at hand.

What type of data might be included in a broad-scope persona for a financial company?

A broad-scope persona for a financial company might include high-level data such as the type of savings vehicles users are interested in, their disposable income, their ability to save, and their level of existing knowledge about saving money.

How can narrow-scope personas help in the design of a specific product like a mobile banking application?

Narrow-scope personas are beneficial for the design of specific products like a mobile banking application because they provide detailed insights into user motivations, attitudes, and behaviors directly related to the product's context, which is essential for making targeted design decisions.

What is the key question to ask stakeholders before creating personas?

The key question to ask stakeholders before creating personas is to understand their goal for the personas. This helps in matching the scope of the personas to the intended purpose and ensures that the personas will be useful for the stakeholders.