more tips for personas

kim goodwin's new uie article Perfecting Personas offers some good tips to keep in mind when developing personas.

represent behavioral patterns, not job descriptions

A persona answers critical questions that a job description or task list doesn’t, such as: Which pieces of information are required at what points in the day? Do users focus on one thing at a time, carrying it through to completion, or are there a lot of interruptions? Why are they using this product in the first place?

keep your set small

Ideally, you should have only the minimum number of personas required to illustrate key goals and behavior patterns. … The important distinctions among personas are behavioral, not demographic.

marketing and sales targets may not be the same as your design targets

If you were designing an in-flight entertainment system, a frequent business traveler—every airline’s most valued customer—would be a tempting design target. A business traveler would actually make a poor design target, though, because she would be too familiar with flying and with using computers and other gadgets. If you design for the business traveler, the retired bricklayer going to see his grandchildren won’t be able to use the system. If you design for the bricklayer, you may need to add a little something extra to satisfy the business traveler, but the bulk of the interaction will satisfy them both.

keep the personal details to a minimum

Personal details can be fun to come up with, but if there are too many of them they just get in the way. To avoid this problem, focus first on the behavior patterns, goals, environment, and attitudes of the persona—the information that’s critical for design—without adding any personality.

use the right goals

Most persona goals should be end goals that focus on what the persona could get out of using a well-designed product or service. End goals may involve the work product that results from using the tool. For example, a graphic designer using a layout tool might want to create an award-winning ad. End goals can also involve indirect benefits from using a product. If a manager wants to be more proactive, a better spreadsheet tool can help her achieve this goal if it makes her more efficient.

should be specific to the design problem

Organizations with more than one product often want to use the same personas over and over ("We have a salesperson persona already—why can’t we use her for the spreadsheet as well as the contact management software?"). Unfortunately, this doesn’t work because effective personas must be context-specific—they should be focused on the behaviors and goals related to the specific domain of a product.