Persona

What is it? A representation of a group (segment) of people that summarizes their similar attitudes, behaviors and other characteristics. A persona profile typically includes a name for the group (e.g. Nathan the Novice, Savvy Sally, or Busy Bees), a written explanation (of their shared attitudes, behaviors, characteristics and sometimes demographic details, e.g. have kids), a quote, and some sort of visual representation of the audience type (could be an avatar, an icon, an illustration or even a photo.) Personas are used to bring a segment within an audience to life.

When is it best used? When a team or an individual needs guidance on the nuances of different groups of people within their audience to fulfill objectives in meaningful ways. For example when developing new products or services, communication/messaging, recruiting participants for research, and to inform other strategies and tactics.

Sidenote: There is controversy about how useful personas are potentially due to misunderstanding and their misuse. There are conflicting ideas about the best way to define/develop the persona profiles; should they be based on a teams’ hypotheses about their audience and validated in qualitative research, or always developed based on qualitative research learning. It is also important to revisit them and update them over time, and this seldom happens.

What does it entail? The process of creating valid personas requires time and investment in data collection and analysis to acquire a deep understanding of the audience usually through qualitative research. First, generate hypotheses about the potential personas based on a first round of qualitative learning (or existing knowledge about the audience,) validate these assumptions through qualitative research, express them literally and visually, and educate the people who will use them to ensure full understanding and correct application. Sometimes these segments/personas are quantified to determine what % of your audience is represented by each persona (often called a “segmentation study”.).

Interchangeable term: Segment, segment type, characterization 

Use in a sentence: Segmenting your audience allows you to target specific personas to ensure maximum relevance.

Related terms: Segmentation Study, Journey Mapping, Customer Avatar, Archetype

Visual: Yes

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