7.0 KiB
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:
- Most important feature/capability
- Second priority
- 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
- Identify patterns in research data
- Group similar users into segments
- Create 2-4 distinct personas (not more)
- Name and humanize each persona
- Validate with real users if possible
- 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