What’s the biggest mistake made when creating personas?
Personas are an essential design tool — as you well know if you’re reading this email. But to truly add value, personas must deliver insights that can be realized in the strategic design process. That’s why when I see personas based on demographics, such as age, location, or role, I cringe. And believe me, I see it often.
Don’t get me wrong — demographic information is important in a persona, but it cannot form its foundation. That’s because people don’t take action simply because of their age, role, location, or other demographic category. They take action because they are more or less likely to act a certain way, have a certain belief, or are trying to solve a certain problem.
A high value persona — one that will truly help you create dynamic and authentic experiences — must be based in behaviors, motivations, and values.
Here’s an example: I was working with a global organization on an internal project and interviewed 60 employees around the world that spanned many roles, ages, and locations. If I had segmented personas based on demographics, I would have had to create dozens of personas. And again, those personas would have been meaningless because they were based on data points that were not ultimately insightful.
Instead of taking a demographic based approach, we looked for common feelings and challenges regardless of demographics. While certain demographic data clustered around certain personas, we didn’t focus on demographics as our foundation. Rather, we focused on feelings and motivations such as enthusiasm and connection, which led to three personas that were packed with actionable insights.
So, how do you avoid this major misstep to create actionable and inspiring personas? Here are three key steps to follow:
1. Set your goals
Start by setting research goals that seek to identify people’s behaviors, motivations, needs, and values. This can be done by writing up a basic Research Objectives Statement that sets the direction and aligns the team. This works for both primary research, such as interviews or focus groups, or secondary research where you are reviewing pre-existing research. (Note: If you’re conducting primary research, be sure that your recruit and question set also reflect attitudes, not just demographics.)
2. Prioritize the most meaningful data
When conducting your analysis, look first for behavior, motivation, and/or value based data, and secondarily for demographic data. And be sure to map demographics such as age to behaviors, motivations, and/or values, instead of the other way around.
3. Design strategically
Create persona titles that focus on the needs, behaviors, motivations, or values for your key audiences. For example, don’t title your persona, “Millennial Female” or “Accountant.” Instead pull out the defining factors. Here are a few actual persona titles I have used over the years: the Second Guesser, the Disconnected Enthusiast, and the Optimistic Traditionalist.
It’s not easy, and you may face resistance, but do your best. I promise that you’ll see more actionable and more inspiring results.
Until next time, be well, and think big!
