You want to design better products. How can you create user personas that help you achieve this?

Gather as much data as possible: - qualitative via user interviews, direct observations of the user in their context using the product - quantitative - surveys, questionnaires, quantitative analysis of data, how the product is used Each will show a different perspective. AI tools can be used to be generated some of this data, however it needs to be validated with real users.

To design better products, creating user personas can help by providing a clear understanding of your target audience's needs, preferences, and pain points, guiding the development process to align with user-centric design principles. Goal: Design clear job aids #elearning

This is true but manage carefully. It is easy to go deep into collecting and interpreting data that could slow your progress on finding solutions. Qualitative data helps you to understand the whys, the hows and the whats of users perceiving your product. These are collected via conversations, interviews, feedback, surveys, etc. Quantitative data helps you to understand how many, how much or how often. These are collected via data analysis from products like Google analytics.

Start by collecting user data: ? User as in prospect or current or future user. Or even the non user. ? Data as in qualitative or quantitative Create real life based personas and identify their scenarios. Deep dive into the very needs of each user category but keep in mind the environnement in which the product will be used and the business expectations regarding that product. Only a well balanced approach of these three voices - market, business, customer - will create a solid foundation for the product to be built upon.

Research: Gather insights on user behaviors and preferences. Identify Segments: Group users with similar characteristics. Develop Personas: Create detailed profiles, including goals and challenges. Empathy: Understand user emotions and experiences. Validation: Use real data to validate persona traits. Iterate: Regularly update personas based on evolving user trends. Cross-Functional Collaboration: Involve teams from various departments for diverse perspectives. Align with Product Goals: Ensure personas align with product objectives. Accessibility: Make personas accessible to the entire team. User-Centric Design: Incorporate persona insights into the product development process.

When you gather much data, making sense of it could be overwhelming. For a human, it may take quite some time to analyse it and translate it into insights and findings. AI is priceless supporter for that: - Bring what you have as knowledge for the context and product and give it to them to teach them - Ask them to generate most valuable/helpful insights out of it for Product, Engineering, user behavior - AI can also help you find the countersection between qualitative and quantitative data - Ask them to generate persona - use it as a starting point to refine it AI tools can't judge the context and will take it as you give it to them. Try to provide a clean-from-biases picture. This includes cultural biases, mass-biases and personal bias.

Data collection has to be triggered by a purpose. Correct and well driven data analysis plays a crucial role on steering the project onto the right direction : the right solution for the right problem.

After collecting user data, the next step is to analyze and segment it. Tools like Excel or Google Sheets can help organize the data, while Affinity Diagrams or Empathy Maps can assist in identifying patterns and insights. This process aims to group users into meaningful segments, highlighting their commonalities and differences, which is crucial for creating targeted and effective user personas.

Introduce diversity into your personas. It forces the team to consider the market is a lot larger than the research indicates.

Crafting user personas involves distilling your user segments into relatable profiles. Use tools like Xtensio or HubSpot to create personas that include key attributes like demographics, goals, motivations, and pain points. This step is about giving a face and story to your data, making it easier to empathize with and design for your users' real needs and behaviors.

Create a clear, focused persona that guides people who use it. This is the purpose and goal of having personas. It is the tip of the iceberg of all research work it is done underneath. Include behaviors that bring light on how the service/product is used in the context and how it interferes with persona's life. It will help create a product/service that enhances their lifestyle, work-life balance and integrates smoothly, which is key to success. If you aim to change behavior, it will inform where and how it is possible.

Personas are quite helpful to communicate within the team because they materialize a full mass of information concerning a given category of user. It is quite important to share them so that they can actually be integrated onto the creative process and help ensure the final product actually reliefs the personas' needs and expectations.

La connaissance des utilisateurs pour faire un bon produit est primordiale. Il est parfois difficile d'être certains des personas de notre produit si on les "spécialise" trop. Mais il ne faut pas non plus en omettre au risque de se couper d'un volet d'utilisateurs. Bien conna?tre ses personas est nécessaire pour bien répondre à leurs attentes et donc faire que notre produit est utilisé. Des templates de collecte d'informations existent mais la proximité aide aussi beaucoup à caractériser ces typologies d'utilisateurs ! Des feedbacks fréquents sont précieux pour bien cerner les usages et besoins non exprimés.

It’s also crucial to emphasize the iterative nature of personas. As markets evolve and new user data becomes available, revisiting and revising personas ensures they remain accurate and actionable. This continuous refinement process is key to maintaining their relevance and effectiveness in guiding UX design and strategy.

Make sure that the user personas you create, account for diversity. You want to be sure you capture things like language differences, technology proficiency, disabilities, gender, socio-economic status, race, ethnicity, and more. Doing this will help you design a product that is inclusive and accessible. It will also help you gain perspective on what kind of needs arise in cases of intersectionality.

Even though the focus is "persona", the critical element missing here is the user journey. Mindsets as users navigate their day, shift personas as what was important during morning coffee on the couch shifts to what's important when at the mall shopping for shoes or the office conference room preparing for the morning status meeting. Understanding and building product functions for these persona shifts in these scenarios will improve your product dramatically as those are moments when users reach for their devices to engage in your product and brand and when they are expecting results/rewards.

To create a meaningful Persona, it's essential to look into the brand's archetype, its ecosystem, and the promises it extends to its users. Each user harbors distinct expectations from various brands, underscoring the significance of comprehending archetypes and their influence on users' lives during persona development for research purposes.