This is service design doing (2) — Personas

A persona should be based on research and represent a group of people with shared needs or common behavior patterns.

By Marc Stickdorn, Adam Lawrence, Markus Hormess, and Jakob Schneider

Personas can be used to share research findings and insights within your team and outside your team, across different departments or even across organizations. They are “characters” with which design teams can engage, and can serve as boundary objects to align an interdisciplinary team.

Here are some elements that a persona should have:

1. Portrait image: Avoid using images of celebrities to prevent prejudice and to increase authenticity.
2. Name: A name often reflects a persona’s heritage and social environment.
3. Demographics: Demographic information, such as age, gender, or geographics, gives context to a persona and immediately creates a specific image of a certain target group for a design team.

4. Quote: A quote summarizes your persona’s attitude in one sentence.

5. Mood Images: These photos or sketches enrich a persona with context, They illustrate a persona’s environment or behaviors patterns, as well as goals and motivations.

6. Description: The description can reveal characteristics, personality, attitudes, interests, skills, needs, expectations, motivations, goals, frustrations, brands or technologies the persona likes, or background stories.

7. Statistics: Statistics can be a starting point for personas or used to substantiate more qualitative descriptions.

Take a step back from time to time to cross-check if the personas are realistic or if they feel too artificial, too constructed, too much like patchwork. And avoid creating “idealized customers,” not the customers you will find in reality.