<aside> ⭐ A persona is a fictional, yet realistic, description of a typical or target user of the product. It is used to promote empathy, increase awareness and memorability of target users, prioritize features, and inform design decisions.
</aside>
Personas are a practical tool to help prioritize content and functionality. They are fictional characters based on an identified audience or user type. They serve as an encapsulation of your understanding of the intended audience. Personas typically include a hypothetical person’s name, key demographic characteristics, motivations, anxieties, and the tasks they need to complete with regard to a website, application, or service.
Personas are created with information gathered from user and stakeholder interviews. As a result of these activities, you can identify the most important functionality an audience needs. These personas will aid in making design decisions and build empathy while maintaining objectivity. They can also serve as the basis for user testing(link) that is conducted to validate the website.
Personas are not intended to capture all needs or functionality of the site. Rather, they serve as an understanding of a site’s most important priorities.
© Lene Nielsen, All Rights Reserved.
<aside> 👨 Download your free template for “Engaging Personas”
</aside>
Behavioural personas primarily describe target audiences that are grouped by behaviours rather than demographic traits. In this context, a persona represents a group of consumers rather than a single entity with similar ways of thinking and behavior in relation to a specific service. The basic rationale for anyone while interacting with a product or service and what users hope to get out of this interaction are often captured by creating behavioural personas.