Persona Development Methods

Understanding UI/UX at the Core - Series #Day6 🚀 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- User Persona: designing for a real human, not an imaginary user. 👩💻 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- One of the most common mistakes in design is saying, “Our users are everyone.” They aren’t. When we design for everyone, we usually end up designing for no one. This is where user personas become essential not as documents to impress stakeholders, but as tools to keep design human. A user persona is a representation of a real user, created from research, not assumptions. It captures goals, pain points, behaviours, motivations, and context the things that actually influence how someone uses a product. 💡 Why does this matter? Because design decisions change when you stop thinking about “users” and start thinking about a person. - A person with limited time. - A person under stress. - A person with specific needs and constraints. In UX, personas act like a constant reality check. When you’re stuck between design choices, they help answer questions like: - Would this make sense for them? - Would this add effort or reduce it? - Does this solve their actual problem or just look good? Personas also play a big role in alignment. They give designers, product managers, and developers a shared understanding of who we are designing for. This reduces subjective opinions and keeps conversations user-focused. 🚀 How do you create a meaningful persona? It starts with research, interviews, surveys, usability tests, analytics, and real conversations. Patterns are identified, common behaviours are grouped, and insights are synthesised into a clear, realistic profile. A good persona is not fictional creativity. It’s structured empathy. 🌻 When done well, personas influence everything, flows, features, content, and priorities. They help designers stay grounded, especially when personal bias tries to creep in. For fellow designers, this is an important mindset shift: - Personas are not deliverables. - They are decision-making tools. Great UX doesn’t come from designing ideal experiences. It comes from designing realistic experiences for real people, in real situations. 😊 Figma LinkedIn UX Touch☀️ #uiux #userexperience #creator #linkedin #persona #concept #lessons #uxcourse #job #juniordesigner #uiuxdesign #userpersona #uxprinciples #designthinking #productdesign #uidesign #designercommunity #designeducation #usercentereddesign

“Personas are pointless.” I used to disagree. Then I agreed. Now? "It depends." Once, I spent six weeks building a set of personas (you can see one below). Blood, sweat, and not-so-fun tears. I put everything I knew into them which, to be fair, wasn’t much back then. I couldn’t sleep the night before the big reveal. And then... ↳ "Oh yeah, we already knew that." ↳ "This isn't our exact focus anymore" ↳ Nods but no action A big old flop. So, can personas be pointless? Absolutely. - If they’re made in isolation - If they aren’t tied to real decisions - If they don’t change how people work But when they do work, it’s because they’re built for decision-making, not lamination. Here are 5 ways to make personas actually useful, based on years of trial, error, and one too many sad personas gathering dust in Google Drive: 1. Run an “Information Needs” workshop before you start Ask your PMs, designers, and devs: “What do you wish you knew about our users to make better decisions?” Document their needs → design your research to answer them → bake those answers into your persona. 2. Build proto-personas collaboratively to surface assumptions early Before you do any research, map out what people think they know. Use sticky notes color-coded by: - Assumption - Analytics - Existing research This reveals gaps, misalignment, and gives you a jumpstart on where to dig deeper during interviews and information to include in your personas. 3. Anchor personas in journey stages, not personality traits Forget personality sliders or random hobbies. Instead, map: - What users are trying to accomplish - What frustrates them at each stage - Which tools they use and why If your persona doesn’t help answer: “What would break their flow here?," rewrite it. 4. Activate personas through workshops, not PDFs Don’t “present” personas, use them. Host an ideation workshop where teams solve for a key need or pain point. Or run a mini-hackathon based on persona insights. 5. Embed personas into rituals and review them quarterly Add a persona lens to roadmap planning: “Which persona does this initiative support?” Post them in your workspace, tag bugs/features with persona names, and revisit them every quarter to update insights. So no, personas aren’t inherently pointless. But pointless personas are everywhere. Always ask yourself: “Will this persona change what we do next?” // If you're struggling to put personas together and don't know what "bad" or "good" really look like, watch this video where I share and diagnose all the problems (and good parts) of the personas I created through the years: https://lnkd.in/etMeeSS9

Ever been handed a vague project like "We need better personas" and a crazy deadline? A simple framework can turn that chaos into clear action: The key? Start with the END GOAL in mind and work backwards. This is because only when you’re clear on the outcome can you create a process that’s realistic, effective, and aligned with business goals. Let’s break it down with the example: "We need better personas." 🎯 Step 1: Define the end goal Ask: Why do we need better personas? What’s the real business metric we’re trying to move? Example: Increase win rates by 9% over the next 6 months. In this case, it’s clear the project isn’t just about creating personas, it’s about using those personas to sharpen messaging and drive more sales. 🎯 Step 2: Align stakeholders & set milestones Before jumping into deliverables, align with key stakeholders. Ensure everyone agrees on the goals, timelines, and success metrics. Kickoff meeting: Confirm the end goal, scope, and key deliverables. Milestone check-ins: Schedule  updates to ensure alignment and course-correct if needed. 🎯 Step 3: Get specific on deliverables If the focus is on increasing win rates, what’s needed beyond just personas? - > Persona profiles: Core buyer personas, pain points, triggers, buying journey maps, and content preferences. - > Messaging guide: Value propositions, key messaging themes with proof points, objection handling, and specific talking points. - > Sales enablement toolkit: Persona-specific pitch decks, talk tracks, one-pagers, FAQs, and objection-handling guides. 🎯 Step 4: Gather data Given the timeline and goals, what’s realistic for research? Examples could be: - > Deploy a customer survey to 200 customers to refine and segment personas. - > Analyze 10 closed sales deals within ICP. - > Conduct 5 in-depth customer interviews for qualitative insights. 🎯 Step 5: Build, test, and iterate Once stakeholders agree on the research plan and deliverables, start building and validating. - > Develop personas and associated messaging. - > A/B test messaging to validate impact (e.g. using emails) -> Collect sales team feedback on persona usability and messaging effectiveness. Key takeaway: Working backwards forces clarity and also makes it easier for you to counter unrealistic times.  I have been working through this process with dozens of clients to help them get more clarity. I’d love to hear from you! How do you approach vague project requests? #productmarketing #coaching #GTM #productivity #career

I'll never forget the moment I realized we were doing persona research completely wrong. We were just presented this in a report: "Your ideal parents read Town and Country magazine." I stared at the report. Then asked the question that changed everything. "What are we supposed to do with that information?" Silence. We didn't have the budget for Town and Country ads. We didn't have the expertise to create them. We had zero ability to act on this insight. That's when it hit me. We'd spent months collecting data that looked impressive but was completely useless. Here's what most schools get wrong about persona development. They collect data for the sake of collecting data. They hire expensive firms. Download reports from fancy systems. Conduct elaborate surveys. Then they get insights they can't act on. The truth? You can build useful personas. You need to ask one simple question: Can we actually do something with this information? Here's the framework we developed instead: Start with your resources. What marketing channels do you control? Website, email, social media, events. Ask only questions that inform those channels. Where do they search online? What concerns keep them up at night? What objections do they have? Skip the impressive but useless stuff. Magazine subscriptions, luxury brand preferences, vacation habits. Focus on actionable insights. Keywords they search. Questions they ask. Problems you can solve. We rebuilt our persona process around this principle. Instead of "reads Town and Country," we identified "searches 'best private schools near me' at 11 PM on their phone." Instead of "drives a luxury SUV," we learned "worries their child isn't being challenged in public school." The difference? We could act on every single insight. We optimized our website for those keywords. We created content addressing those concerns. We crafted emails answering those questions. Within a year, our inquiries increased significantly. Not because we had better data. Because we had actionable data. Your persona research doesn't need to be exhaustive. It needs to be useful. Before you collect any information, ask yourself: What will I do differently once I know this? If you don't have a clear answer, don't collect it. Save yourself months of work. Focus only on insights you can act on with the resources you have. That's the difference between impressive research and effective marketing.

I often felt that user research and creating personas were a guessing game and a waste of time. I was wrong. Here is how to ensure the research brings great results: It can indeed feel like a pointless exercise when you're doing research just to check a box, or when your personas end up being a slide nobody ever opens again. The truth is, only good research drives good decisions. So, why isn't it always good? 1) You interview too few people, or only those easy to reach Talking to just five people from your internal network or friends of friends rarely gives you a full picture. If you don't capture a range of motivations and use cases, you're likely building for a narrow and biased segment. 2) You ask leading questions When people sense what you want to hear, they try to be nice. This results in empty validation that hides the real frictions they face. 3) You stop at surface-level insights If the notes are a collection of generic statements like "I want it to be easy to use," you’re not learning anything actionable. Real insights come from digging into stories, context, and behavior. 4) Your findings aren't actionable Insights without a direct impact on what you're building tend to fade into the background. If you can't point to how research shaped a feature or decision, it's just noise. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 • Focus on behavior, not opinion: Asking people to describe what they did in a specific situation reveals more truth than asking them what they want. • Pattern recognition for the win: It’s tempting to anchor on one powerful quote, but decisions based on isolated comments are dangerous. The goal is to spot repeated patterns across interviews and use those to inform the product direction. • Co-create personas with your team: This way, they use them, not ignore them. Personas made in isolation often fail because they don’t feel real or relevant. Involving designers, engineers, and even sales in creating personas helps ensure they are grounded in actual experience and get referenced often.    𝗧𝗼𝗼𝗹𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗽 • Maze makes it easy to run user tests without scheduling interviews. It’s great for testing flows, copy, and concepts with actual users at scale. • WhiteBridge.ai helps you to identify similar people or talk to completely fresh prospects. • Dovetail allows you to tag and synthesize interview data efficiently. You can quickly identify themes and build a research repository that your team can access anytime.    Remember, if you can't do it right, you shouldn't do it at all. There are other ways to make the best product bets possible. Do you trust in your user research? Sound off in the comments! #productmanagement #productmanager #userresearch P.S. To become a Product Manager who can perform good research, be sure to check out my courses on www. drbartpm. com :)

You can’t sell to a world you don’t understand. If I were an SDR starting today, here are the things I’d do in my first month to understand the world of my persona I sell to - fast: 1️⃣ Read 1-2 industry reports Gartner McKinsey & Company CB Insights - the macro view. 2️⃣ Follow 10 operators in your ICP Follow their content. Use their language and phrasing. 3️⃣ Listen to persona-led podcasts. Hear how they describe their challenges in their own words. 4️⃣ Read 2-3 job descriptions. Understand their KPIs, pressures and expectations. 5️⃣ Join their communities. Slack groups, Linkeidn groups - unfiltered convo is gold. 6️⃣ Read one earnings call in their vertical. Leadership concerns = persona concerns. 7️⃣ Write a weekly note: “what my persona cares about right now?” 8️⃣ Speak to your internal persona. Selling to CFOs? Talk to your finance leader. Your personas exist in your own company - use them. BONUS 💫 9️⃣ Talk to one person in your ICP each week - with zero intent to sell. Just ask fo human to human help: “What actually catches your attention in outreach?” “What is the #1 challenge you’re facing right now?” Shout out Kade Hinkle who did this early… he hit October and he’s already hit November. 😮💨👏 I back your for your December goal too. If you want more meetings, spend your first month mastering their world. 🔒 Knowledge → Relevance → Confidence → Meetings What else belongs on this list? 👇 #sdr #bdr #outbound

🔍 Research Funnel: A Practical Way to Strengthen Your UX Research Just like any other product design activity, UX research benefits from a solid process. Emma Boulton’s Research Funnel (https://lnkd.in/diHXu-G9) offers a clear way to align research methods with each stage of the project lifecycle—from broad discovery to focused execution. Here’s how it works, step by step: 1️⃣ Understand the Funnel Layers The funnel moves from Top (Macro) - high-level, strategic domains that look at the big picture across systems, journeys, and ecosystems - to Bottom (Micro) - detailed, tactical focus points zoomed in on specific interactions or touchpoints. ✔ Exploratory (top): Broad, open-ended research to uncover new problem spaces or underserved segments. ✔ Strategic: Define target users, personas, and scenarios (moving from broad discovery to a refined direction). ✔ Tactical: Usability testing on prototypes to iterate and improve designs. ✔ Operational (bottom): Measure specific performance (e.g., A/B testing, conversion metrics). 2️⃣ Tailor Research to Each Phase Choose method that works best for the layer ✔ Exploratory: Use surveys or semi-structured interviews to explore adjacent problem areas. ✔ Strategic: Conduct baseline usability tests on the existing product, and develop personas and user journeys. ✔ Tactical: Test prototypes with real users to refine the solution. ✔ Operational: Track launch metrics, run A/B tests, and gather satisfaction data to measure ongoing performance. 3️⃣ Mix & Blend Methodologies Don’t wait for perfectly defined phases. Instead, blend exploratory, strategic, and tactical questions within a single research session to maximize insights (especially when resources are tight). 💡 Tip: Start interviews with broad, easy questions. Warm-up conversations often lead to surprising, high-value insights. 4️⃣ Expand Your Sample Go beyond just core users. Involve adjacent user groups like secondary personas or community members during exploratory and strategic phases. Also consider competitor reviews and internal stakeholder interviews to diversify your input. 5️⃣ Iterate Non-Linearly Research isn’t always linear. Use insights from later stages (like operational findings) to inform earlier ones. Feeding these learnings back into strategy or discovery can unlock powerful pivots. 6️⃣ Align Tools with Workflow ✔ Agile teams: Lean on tactical and operational research for continuous feedback loops. ✔ Discovery/redesign phases: Focus on exploratory and strategic research to build a strong foundation. 7️⃣ Make Research Actionable & Inclusive Involve stakeholders throughout the process—from planning to synthesis. Activities like co-analysis and affinity mapping help increase buy-in and prevent insights from being ignored. 📣 Share your findings in digestible formats: think plain-language summaries, visual slides, or short videos to make insights stick across teams. #UX #research #design

5 Advanced Buyer Persona Prompts: Marketing with a Veggie Twist! 🥗 In the dynamic world of marketing, understanding your buyer isn’t just important—it’s the whole vegetable thali! Let’s add some zest to this mix with advanced buyer persona strategies that are as diverse as a veggie platter. Ready to dive in and season your marketing efforts with some fresh insights? Here we go! 5 Common Marketing Mistakes: ➤ Same sabzi every day. (Serving the same dish repeatedly) Not diversifying your strategies. ➤Assuming tastes without asking. Making decisions based on assumptions, not real customer data. ➤All garnish, no essence. Creating personas that look good on paper but lack depth. ➤All serve, no listen. Ignoring what your customers are really saying. ➤Sticking to the old recipes. Relying solely on traditional marketing methods. 5 Zesty Ways to Upgrade Your Buyer Persona Game: Dive Deep into Data. ↳ Utilize analytics tools to gather insights; from these, craft a detailed profile of your buyer’s behavior. Harness the Power of Social Listening. ↳ Keep an ear out on social media for real-time customer opinions and trends. Stay current, or you’ll miss out! Embrace A/B Testing. ↳ Test different aspects of your marketing to see what truly resonates with your audience. It’s like finding the perfect spice balance! Make Friends with Interactive Content. ↳ Engage your audience with quizzes, polls, and interactive videos. It’s about making connections that stick. Add a Dash of Cultural Insights. ↳ Understand the cultural preferences that influence buying decisions. Get to know your customers' tastes to connect on a deeper level! Takeaway: Your marketing needs more than just the occasional sprinkle of coriander—it requires a rich mix of understanding and evolving strategies. Blend these advanced techniques into your marketing mix, and watch your efforts bloom! Ready to spice up your marketing strategy with these fresh insights? Let's connect! P.S. If you found these tips helpful, please share them! ♻️ Interested in crafting buyer personas that truly resonate? DM me, and I'll share the prompts with you!!!

Want to write better content? Create a better persona. You can swipe my top 10 questions to take persona development to a new level for better content marketing: Who do they answer to at work?  Who are they trying to impress?  What does a day in their life look like?  How do they source news?  What keeps them up on Sunday nights?  What gets them going on Monday mornings?  How do they measure success? Where are their eyeballs most of the day?  Who are they most likely to ask for help?  What are they afraid to admit? Do you know the answers to these for your most ideal buyer? Is your marketing content speaking directly to these realities? In an attention economy, you have to make your content immediately RELEVANT, or it will be scrolled right past. Why does your product or service matter to them? Get to know the answers to this, and you'll be heard above the noise. The alternative? Unseen is unsold.

Personas are fictional characters that are created to represent ideal prospects or actual customers (or employees) based on needs, pain points, problems to be solved, jobs to be done, preferences, expectations, goals, and more. Personas are research based, created by starting with customer interviews and then fine tuning with validation surveys. I also advocate for using some of the bread crumbs of data that customers leave behind as they interact and transact with the brand to make these personas more robust and lifelike. They have a name, age, occupation, and image to humanize them and to bring them to life. Do not allow personas to be developed in your organization with internal thinking (because you think you know who your customers), i.e., gathering a group of stakeholders to talk about who they think your customers are. It perpetuates inside-out thinking. It’s not accurate. And it’s lazy. You have to talk to customers (or employees). After all, it’s called customer understanding, not business understanding or thinking. But it's not just enough to develop personas. They must be socialized and operationalized in order to be valuable. They are used to design experiences and much more. Socializing personas makes sure they are well-known and deeply understood, while operationalizing them ensures they are actively used to drive business processes. I’m often asked how to socialize and operationalize them. In this week's article (link in first comment), find eight ways to socialize them and 10 ways to operationalize them. #personas #customerunderstanding #employeeunderstanding #customerexperience #employeeexperience #design