User personas are one the most powerful UX artifacts at your disposal. Unless they’re not.
Although they’re one of the first things you learn about as a UX designer and one of the most adopted tools in UX design, there are still many misconceptions and sloppy implementations of user personas.
Poorly crafted user personas not only don’t help your UX process, they can even harm it. Think garbage in, garbage out. The better the quality of your UX artifacts, the better outcomes you can produce for users.
With that in mind, this article examines a few of the most common mistakes designers make when creating user personas.
When it comes to user personas, the most common (and harmful) mistakes include:
Oftentimes, I still see user personas that focus on demographics, such as
More often than not, this data does nothing for you. For instance, say your user persona is:
This description fits both King Charles and… Ozzy Osbourne…
Although they have the same demographics, they experience dramatically different pain points, use different products, and have different needs and expectations.
Instead of demographics, focus on things that can actually help you build a better experience and make your personas’ lives easier, such as their:
There’s a sweet spot when it comes to the level of detail in a user persona.
If you make it too specific, it’ll reflect the needs and expectations of a very small percentage of your users.
However, if you make it too broad you won’t be able to build solutions for a specific enough audience to truly win any market and differentiate from competitors.
There’s no magic formula to assess how much specificity you need, but I use the 20 percent assessment as a rule of thumb.
If the level of detail in the user persona reflects roughly 20 percent of all users, then it’s a perfectly scoped persona. Less than 20 percent, and it’ll become overwhelming to manage so many personas. More than 20 percent, and the persona will start to become too broad and generic.
Use your best judgment.
If I recommend that a user persona covers 20 percent of all your users, does that mean you should ignore the remaining 80 percent?
Of course not!
Instead of building a single persona that covers everyone in your user group (so, in reality, it covers no one), it makes more sense to establish a few different personas.
You likely have a diverse user base, with many similarities but also different needs, and expectations. Segmenting those into dedicated personas will give you a much clearer picture of who your users really are:
Ultimately, it’s better to isolate, say, three user personas, and build dedicated user journeys with dedicated sub-features for each rather than building one generic journey for one generic user persona.
It doesn’t matter how great your persona is if it doesn’t help you make smarter decisions.
I’ve worked with many teams that spend weeks (if not months) creating a “perfect” user persona just to discuss it in one meeting, send out a beautiful presentation, and… forget about it. A few years pass, and they repeat the cycle.
Pure waste.
Instead, make sure user personas help you make smarter decisions.
My favorite ways to implement personas in the decision-making process are:
The market changes all the time. Your product evolves over time. Users change, too.
No matter how much effort you put into creating your user persona, it’ll become obsolete after a few weeks if you don’t keep it updated.
Review your user personas at least monthly and use your findings to:
In most products, especially B2C ones, users are also the buyers. For example, you buy a Spotify or Netflix subscription (buyer) to then listen to music or watch the latest season of “Stranger Things” (user).
But it’s not always the case. Especially in B2B, people who buy the product are often different from people who use the product.
Make sure to build different personas for these and consider the needs of both when working on your designs.
The same principles apply to both. Whenever I use the phrase “user persona” in the article, you can also apply the rules and tips for your buyer persona if they differ.
Personas should be research-based and backed by evidence.
But sometimes you don’t have time for it, especially when starting a new project in a rush. In cases like that, it might make sense to start with proto-persona.
A proto-persona is a persona based on assumptions and beliefs over evidence and facts. Proto-personas are a good starting point for proper persona development at a later point and a better source of knowledge than a blank page.
Problems only occur when the borders between proto-personas and user personas blur, and people start treating information from proto-personas as facts. Or if they use proto-persona as an excuse not to invest in developing a proper persona.
What I like to do is to put big, bolded disclaimers whenever I use proto-personas. I don’t skimp on using exclamation points or a red color:
User personas can be a potent tool in the UX research process, but only if done right.
A great user persona:
Follow these key principles of user persona design and your whole UX design process will improve.
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