gh-slamb2k-mad-skills-design-skills/skills/pixel-pusher/references/persona-template.md

# 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