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Published in:
2018 | OriginalPaper | Chapter
8. Personas—Who Owns Them
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Abstract
A method to shift a company towards user-centred thinking and product development is the use of personas. Personas are archetypical representations of real users. They summarise what we know about our customers or users; they are based on research and data (quantitative and qualitative research). Sometimes personas are developed by the marketing department, sometimes by the User Experience (UX) department. Typically, they are based on qualitative research like user interviews, observation, contextual research, and usability testing. Why should we use them? What should we be aware of?
Personas are closely connected with storytelling. They are used for brand creation, in product development, and in service design.
Depending on their purpose, they differ: e.g. buyer personas are focussing on the buying process; personas within user-centred design are focussing on user needs closely related to product usage and typical tasks. With every persona, there are one or more stories: for B2C personas, the stories are more personal and related to problems users are trying to solve in their private life. But even for B2B personas with focus on business problems personal motivations and aspirations are playing a role.