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skills/pixel-pusher/references/persona-template.md

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+# User Persona Template
+
+Use this template when creating user personas to guide design decisions.
+
+## Persona Structure
+
+### Basic Information
+
+**Name:** [Give a realistic name]
+**Age:** [Age or age range]
+**Occupation:** [Job title/role]
+**Location:** [City, state/country]
+**Photo:** [Description of representative person]
+
+### Demographics
+
+**Education:** [Highest level completed]
+**Income Level:** [Range if relevant]
+**Tech Savviness:** [Low / Medium / High]
+**Preferred Devices:** [Desktop, mobile, tablet preferences]
+
+### Psychographics
+
+**Goals:**
+- Primary goal related to product/service
+- Secondary goals
+- Long-term aspirations
+
+**Pain Points:**
+- Frustrations with current solutions
+- Obstacles to achieving goals
+- Areas of friction in user journey
+
+**Motivations:**
+- What drives their behavior
+- What success looks like to them
+- Triggers for taking action
+
+**Behaviors:**
+- How they currently solve problems
+- Daily routines and habits
+- Decision-making process
+- Information-seeking patterns
+
+### Context
+
+**Typical Day:**
+Brief narrative of how they would interact with your product/service in their daily life.
+
+**Quote:**
+> "A quote that captures their mindset or primary frustration"
+
+### Design Implications
+
+**Priorities for this persona:**
+1. Most important feature/capability
+2. Second priority
+3. Third priority
+
+**Design Considerations:**
+- UI complexity they can handle
+- Information density preferences
+- Visual style they'd resonate with
+- Language/tone that appeals to them
+
+---
+
+## Example Personas
+
+### Example 1: B2B SaaS Product
+
+**Name:** Sarah Chen
+**Age:** 34
+**Occupation:** Marketing Manager at mid-size tech company
+**Location:** San Francisco, CA
+**Tech Savviness:** High
+
+**Goals:**
+- Track campaign performance across multiple channels
+- Generate reports for stakeholders quickly
+- Prove ROI of marketing initiatives
+- Streamline team collaboration
+
+**Pain Points:**
+- Current tools require too many manual exports
+- Data lives in siloed systems
+- Difficult to visualize trends
+- Stakeholder reports take hours to compile
+
+**Motivations:**
+- Career advancement through data-driven decisions
+- Making team more efficient
+- Proving marketing's business impact
+- Reducing time on administrative tasks
+
+**Behaviors:**
+- Checks dashboards first thing each morning
+- Makes decisions based on data, not gut feel
+- Shares insights with team in Slack
+- Prefers visual data over spreadsheets
+
+**Quote:**
+> "I spend more time making reports than actually analyzing the data."
+
+**Design Implications:**
+- Dashboard should load fast with real-time data
+- Export/share functionality needs to be prominent
+- Visual data representation crucial
+- Mobile view important for on-the-go checks
+- Clean, professional aesthetic
+
+---
+
+### Example 2: Consumer Mobile App
+
+**Name:** Marcus Johnson
+**Age:** 28
+**Occupation:** Personal Trainer
+**Location:** Austin, TX
+**Tech Savviness:** Medium
+
+**Goals:**
+- Track client progress efficiently
+- Schedule and manage appointments
+- Share workout plans easily
+- Build professional online presence
+
+**Pain Points:**
+- Juggling multiple apps is confusing
+- Clients forget scheduled sessions
+- Difficult to show progress over time
+- Paper-based tracking isn't professional
+
+**Motivations:**
+- Growing client base
+- Looking professional to prospects
+- Saving time on administrative work
+- Providing better client experience
+
+**Behaviors:**
+- Checks phone between client sessions
+- Prefers quick mobile interactions
+- Learns by doing, not reading manuals
+- Values visual progress tracking
+
+**Quote:**
+> "I need something simple that makes me look professional to my clients."
+
+**Design Implications:**
+- Mobile-first design is critical
+- Large touch targets for ease of use
+- Quick actions without deep menus
+- Visual progress charts for sharing
+- Clean but energetic visual style
+- Minimal text, maximum visual feedback
+
+---
+
+### Example 3: Enterprise Software
+
+**Name:** David Patel
+**Age:** 51
+**Occupation:** IT Director at Fortune 500 company
+**Location:** Chicago, IL
+**Tech Savviness:** High (but values efficiency over novelty)
+
+**Goals:**
+- Ensure system security and compliance
+- Manage budget and vendor relationships
+- Minimize downtime and incidents
+- Support 5,000+ employees efficiently
+
+**Pain Points:**
+- Too many disparate systems to monitor
+- Difficulty demonstrating security posture
+- Vendor management is time-consuming
+- Hard to get visibility across entire infrastructure
+
+**Motivations:**
+- Protecting company and employee data
+- Proving value to executive team
+- Career reputation on system reliability
+- Simplifying complex environments
+
+**Behaviors:**
+- Prefers desktop for serious work
+- Values comprehensive documentation
+- Makes decisions based on security first
+- Needs to justify purchases with data
+- Expects professional support
+
+**Quote:**
+> "I need complete visibility and control, but I don't have time to babysit systems."
+
+**Design Implications:**
+- Information-dense interfaces acceptable
+- Security features prominently featured
+- Comprehensive reporting capabilities
+- Professional, trustworthy visual design
+- Clear documentation and support access
+- Desktop-optimized, with mobile monitoring
+
+---
+
+## Creating Personas from Research
+
+### Data Sources
+
+**Quantitative:**
+- Analytics data (demographics, behavior patterns)
+- Survey responses
+- Usage statistics
+- A/B test results
+
+**Qualitative:**
+- User interviews
+- Customer support tickets
+- Sales team feedback
+- Social media comments
+- Competitor reviews
+
+### Synthesis Process
+
+1. **Identify patterns** in research data
+2. **Group similar users** into segments
+3. **Create 2-4 distinct personas** (not more)
+4. **Name and humanize** each persona
+5. **Validate** with real users if possible
+6. **Update** as you learn more
+
+### Using Personas
+
+**Design decisions:**
+- "Would Sarah find this feature intuitive?"
+- "Does this match Marcus's mobile-first behavior?"
+- "Is this comprehensive enough for David's needs?"
+
+**Prioritization:**
+- Which features serve primary persona?
+- What can be deprioritized for secondary personas?
+- Are we excluding any important user segments?
+
+**Communication:**
+- Share personas with entire team
+- Reference in design reviews
+- Use in user story writing
+- Test designs against persona needs
+
+---
+
+## Red Flags
+
+**Personas to avoid:**
+
+**Too generic:**
+- "Tech-savvy millennial"
+- Could describe anyone
+- No specific goals or pain points
+
+**Too specific:**
+- Based on one person only
+- Includes irrelevant details
+- Not representative of segment
+
+**Too many:**
+- More than 4-5 personas
+- Dilutes focus
+- Makes design decisions harder
+
+**Aspirational rather than realistic:**
+- Who you WANT users to be
+- Not who they actually are
+- Leads to mismatch with real users
+
+---
+
+## Persona Checklist
+
+- [ ] Based on research, not assumptions
+- [ ] Includes demographics AND psychographics
+- [ ] Clear goals and pain points
+- [ ] Specific behaviors described
+- [ ] Design implications outlined
+- [ ] Relatable and memorable
+- [ ] Validated with real users
+- [ ] Shared with entire team
+- [ ] Referenced in decision-making
+- [ ] Updated as you learn more