As a reminder, a user persona is a fictional or archetype character that represents the needs or behaviors of a larger group based on research. Using a user persona brings value to your product by allowing your team to understand who they are building it for.
So, here are four tips on creating and using user personas.
1. Create the story behind the character.
When creating a user persona, make a story about the character. Answer questions like what is their name? Who are they? What do they do? What kind of personality do they have? Understanding their biography helps your team to understand your persona choices, motivations, and frustrations.
2. Prioritizing your personas.
Products are not made for a single person, so having more than one persona is not uncommon. To bring the most value to your product, review your personas and business goals to prioritize which users represent the most significant number of people aligned with your objectives. This way, you are meeting the needs of your customers.
3. Don’t get too specific, don’t get too broad
While having user personas bring value to your product, it is easy to get overwhelmed with too many user personas with specific information that may not be relevant to your product. The key is to have user personas that represent the needs of a larger group but not to the point where having too many personas becomes unmanageable. It is also easy to fall into not having enough user personas to represent your users. There is balance, and most products have between 3-6 user personas.
4. Embrace Templates
Creating a user persona may be fun, but this, too, can be overwhelming due to the research involved. Therefore, fully embrace using templates found in tools like Mural, Miro, Lucid Chart, etc. These templates give your team a starting point and an easy way to analyze the information you discover.
With these four tips in mind, your user personas will represent the needs of the users of your product.