How do you make user personas and scenarios more inclusive?

1 Define your scope and criteria

Before you create user personas and scenarios, define the scope and criteria of your project and your users. Who are you designing for? What are their characteristics, preferences, behaviors, motivations, and challenges? How do you measure their success and satisfaction? Consider the diversity and inclusion aspects of your users, such as their age, gender, ethnicity, culture, language, ability, location, and access. How do these factors affect their experience and expectations? How do you avoid excluding or marginalizing any user groups?

2 Conduct inclusive research

To create user personas and scenarios that are based on real data and insights, you need to conduct inclusive research. This means involving users from different backgrounds, perspectives, and contexts in your research process. You can use various methods, such as interviews, surveys, observations, or testing, to collect qualitative and quantitative data. Be respectful, ethical, and empathetic when interacting with your users. Ask open-ended and unbiased questions, listen actively and attentively, and acknowledge and address any potential barriers or challenges.

4 Create and refine your user personas and scenarios

Based on your data analysis and synthesis, you can create and refine your user personas and scenarios. Use templates or tools to structure and format your user personas and scenarios. Include relevant and realistic information, such as name, photo, demographic, background, personality, scenario, task, goal, and outcome. Avoid generalizing or stereotyping your user personas and scenarios — make them specific, diverse, and inclusive. You can use multiple user personas and scenarios to represent different user segments and situations.