User Personas | Why do we need them?

The objective of this article is to demonstrate why and how User Personas can help in creating better products and help us remove our own biases while designing products for our users. Detailed discussion on steps to create and validate user personas will be the subject of another article.

We design for ourselves not our users

We all want to design and build beautiful products that do what we think they should do but fail to satisfy most of our users. We all have our biases, preferences, assumptions and perspectives and we tend to design the solutions based on how we understand the problem.

I was shown the following illustration first time in 1986 and it is still relevant today!

We all have our own biases, preferences, assumptions and perspectives

We forget that we are not the users of our product and we should design the products for our users not for ourselves.

Design for everyone

So, let us design a product that our users want! So that we have happy users!

The problem is which user we should design the product for? Our product, depending on what it is, could potentially be used by hundreds, thousands or even millions of users, each with her own needs, struggles and wants!

Why don't we build something that satisfies everyone!

OK, Let us design a car for everyone!

We could do some market research, interview potential customers in shopping malls etc, or conduct some surveys to understand which features people would most value in a car.

We could then design a car that incorporates all those features that our users wanted.

A car designed to make everyone happy!

Clearly, this car is a mishmash of features, it looks ugly, no-one would be happy driving it and no-one would buy it!

Design for specific types of users

Maybe the answer lies in designing for specific types of users.

Let us focus on just two types of users: The Cool Guy! and The Working Mum!

You can design for specific types of users

As you can see, the user needs of these two types of users are completely different. Both clearly need a functioning car that they can drive safely and go from point A to B.

But, the Cool Guy likes to show off and needs a car that can go from 0 to 60 in sub-seconds, convertible roof, superb handling, flashy design and latest gadgets.

Working Mum, on the other hand, needs a Multi-Purpose Vehicle for school runs, grocery shopping, carry the family in a safe environment and only require basic equipment.

We could not design a car that satisfied both of these types of users but we could clearly design two cars for each type of users and fulfil their unique needs.

User Personas

The Cool Guy and Working Mum represent user personas.

A persona, in user-centred design and marketing, is a fictional character created to represent a user type that might use a site, brand, or product in a similar way.

Let us discuss how we could identify and use Personas to design our example ‘ Book my Movie Ticket’ product and provide a better user experience.

Here is our big bold vision for the ‘Book My Movie Ticket’ app:

Our big, bold vision for ‘Book My Movie Ticket’

Let us see, who our potential users are.

Not surprisingly, it is everyone who likes to go to the movies.

We can’t possibly design for everyone and make everyone happy! It is impossible.

So, let us try and work out the types of users who would go to the movies. Based on our research, we know that people rarely go and watch a movie on their own, they go in groups. So, let us take that into account. Here are the types of moviegoers we came up with:

So, we have identified about 20 types of moviegoers. Looking at our discussion on designing a car for everyone, this is still too many types of users to build a product for and meet their specific needs.

Let us undertake some research and analyse each of the user types, within the context of our big bold vision for the Movie Ticket app, against the following attributes:

Demography and Environment

Consider attributes such as gender, age, education and ability to spend. Work out if they are largely a mobile user or desktop user. We know that we can not design for every type of user, so try and work out what percentage of user base each of the group represents. It will be wise to pick up the user types that represent the largest percentage of the user base.

Needs and Wants

Each user type will have its own needs and wants that may or may not differ from the other user types. Try and conduct some user interviews or role-play within the product team to work out the needs and wants. For example:

I need to plan and book movie tickets in advance as it will be part of a day out for the kids

I need to drop my children to school and occasionally my neighbour's children as well. So, I want a car that has enough space for passengers as well as for luggage.

Motivation and Goals

In addition to needs and wants, each user type will have its own motivation and goals. For example:

I have to make a good impression on my partner by being able to book a movie on the spur of the moment

I must ensure that my car reflects my cool image

Struggles and Pain Points

It is important to identify user struggles and pain points for each user types. Some of the needs and wants are reflected in the user struggles. For Example:

I find it difficult to search, book and pay for movie tickets on the small screen of my mobile, especially when I am planning for the whole day out for the family.

I am frustrated by having to key in my long credit card number and other details every time I book a movie ticket.

If too many clicks are required to book the movie we want to go to, just after we have had a really nice romantic dinner, it ruins our evening.

If only the app could work out the Cinema nearest to us and the genre that we like and suggest the right movie to us, it will be such a pleasant experience.

The above exercise gives us valuable insights into each of the user types. We can decide to ignore all the user types with a single person, as the percentage user base of solo moviegoers is very low. Children will rarely go on their own, so we can decide to merge all user types with children into family user type.

We came up with four user types that represent 90% of the user base of moviegoers. We decided to give them a name (similar to ‘Cool Guy’ and ‘Working Mum’) to make it more personal when we talk about them.

Upon another review, we noticed that almost all the attributes of Spice Girls and Cool Dude are the same and we decided to combine them as one User Type ‘Friends’!

So, we have three User Personas for our Movie Ticket app that represent 90% of our potential user base. We could not design for everyone and if we did, we risked making everyone unhappy. But we can design for a handful of User Personas.

These personas represent the most critical data on user needs, wants, goals, motivations and struggles in a way that the product team members can understand, remember and relate to.

And hopefully, build a product that makes 90% of the users happy!

In summary:

1. Our own biases, preferences and perceptions prevent us from designing for our users
2. We can not design for everyone so we can not make all our users happy
3. We can design for specific types of users
4. User personas will help us understand and relate to our User Types
5. These personas represent the most critical data on user needs, wants, goals, motivations and struggles in a way that the product team members can understand, remember and relate to.
6. When designing user features and interactions, rather than saying, the user wants to, we should say Sally and Harry would want to or Adams family would need to or Friends must be able to… etc.
7. This will help us ensure that we design the product features for Sally and Harry or Adams Family or Friends not for us!

Hope you enjoyed the article. Detailed discussion on steps to create and validate user personas will be the subject of another article.