Definition of Persona for user experience (UX) in design

Marketing director Angus Jenkinson developed the concept of personas for usability in 1990. Alan Cooper seconded it through his book around the same time as Jenkinson. He proposed designing more defined software for a specific group of users. People create more specific and dynamic products. (1)

Persona in User Experience (UX) aims to define a relevant and realistic representation of the target user group as a reference. This representation accounts for measurable and non-measurable elements that are derived from powerful web analytics and user research data. The effectiveness and realistic nature of the persona depend on the user research that has been done to determine them. People represent the group of users who would use the product/website/application. Define the primary expectation of the most important user group, the nature of use of the group, and discover specific features and functionality. Personas describe realistic priorities of the focused user group. (2)

Aim

The persona is a combination of various characteristics of real users to form a specific user group. It is essential to provide guidance by telling stories about the user, and what they expect, so that strategic decisions can be made.

From a UX perspective, the basic goal of the persona is to discover the tasks the user wants to perform, the pattern of behavior, the motivation behind the specific behavior, and the purpose of their goals. From a business perspective, the persona helps set the business goals and syncs it with the user goals for maximum benefit. Find out how you can guide users on your website to gain a strategic advantage. (3)

Persona guides design thinking and is useful to the interface design and development team who can gather requirements to refine design elements around the identified user group.

Persona not only focuses on what the user likes or dislikes, but on their tasks. It takes into account what the user might not want to do and what kind of experience they would like to have. Defines the user’s skill set, background, and environmental factors. This helps establish the actions, aspirations and behaviors of the users.

Persona focuses on things like the data required by the user in a specific period of time, how the user navigates the interface, and whether to focus on specific elements or give them all the same importance. Are there certain elements that are capturing the attention of users? What makes the particular website stand out in the user’s list of choices compared to the competition?

certain considerations

The user research group should not spend more time than necessary on character development and create copious documents with intricate details. Doing this is time consuming and decreases the time allotted for design and development. The focus should be on the user’s motivation, competence and goals. Observing the user to discover key drivers is a good idea for personality development. This can communicate the essential requirements to create a highly useful and functional interface for a target user group.

Persona Build-Up Benefit

Businesses can focus on building personas to test usability in real-world scenarios and allow testing and prioritizing features and functionality based on testing. The test can allow to discover the main disadvantages and discover new opportunities for the designer.

The cost of developing a persona is quite low compared to other testing options. Various new features and options can be discovered and integrated with the design. Information developers can design predictable, behavior-based interfaces that guide and direct users to achieve desired results. Systems architects, content writers, and design engineers can decide the best approaches to design and development. based on discovering hidden motives and the expectation of the desired audience. (4)

Persona can allow designers to prioritize major design elements. You can also solve design redundancy and irrelevance inexpensively. Ongoing monitoring, evaluation, and validation can lead to more perfect designs that require less usability testing. (5)

References

(5) “An introduction to people and how to create them.” March 2, 2004. Step Two Designs. March 24, 2015

(1,3) Sauro, Jeff. “7 basic ideas about personas and the user experience”. July 31, 2012. MeasuringU website. March 24, 2015

(2.4) Usability.Gov. “People”. 2015. Usability.Gov. March 24, 2015