Related Read:<\/strong> What is UX Design?<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n User personas go by many different names<\/a>. You might know them as a buyer persona, customer persona, or customer avatar, but regardless of what you choose to name them, they all serve to achieve the same result. \u201cCustomer personas are semi-fictional profiles that summarize each segment of your audience,\u201d explained Griffin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n User personas will identify the user\u2019s following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The best customer personas will help you understand pain points, create interactive and personalized experiences, and allow you to test new market ideas easily. UX designers utilize this fictional information<\/a> to create functional designs that anticipate the realistic needs and responses of users.<\/p>\n\n\n Trevor Tillery<\/p> Experience Designer at Nerdery<\/p><\/div> Read Story<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div> Sharon Yeun Kim<\/p> UX Design Intern at Colgate-Palmolive<\/p><\/div> Read Story<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div> Kelly Hart<\/p> UX\/UI Designer at Perficient<\/p><\/div> Read Story<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n When it comes to design, it\u2019s not about what<\/strong><\/em> you\u2019re designing, it\u2019s about who<\/strong><\/em> you\u2019re designing for. Developing user personas is the first step to understanding your audience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When you design with user personas in mind, you can effectively and efficiently create a user experience that is best for your audience and directly impact the success of your product. Adobe clearly outlines how implementing a user persona design model can affect the decision-making process much easier with this example<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[Having specific personas] can also help settle arguments around design decisions\u2014instead of saying, \u2018I think the \u2018Send\u2019 button is too small,\u2019 a designer might say, \u2018Since our primary persona, Carolyn, always use mobile on a go, we need to design bigger tap targets in our app to minimize the interaction cost.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n On top of improving decision-making, user personas also create empathy<\/a> for the user. You\u2019re not just creating a persona, you\u2019re developing the necessary tools to understand the psychology of each person who will use your product. Creating a persona provides the framework to communicate with the ideal target audience and produce the best outcomes possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now that we understand why we need user personas, it\u2019s time to create them. Start by answering three key questions about your user.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Use this question to dig into your user persona\u2019s personal life<\/a> by asking a series of questions that help you understand the basic elements of your user persona. You\u2019ll likely be able to answer these questions based on existing data from user demographics, but if you\u2019re starting from scratch or building personas for a new audience you want to design for, ask the following questions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n One trick to help humanize these personas and make them easier to identify is to give them a name<\/a> and flesh out a narrative. For example, you might say, \u201cRachel is a college-educated, 26-year-old woman, living in Brooklyn with roommates.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Flesh out your user persona\u2019s goals, aspirations, and professional life<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Answering these questions informs the design team how much this person makes each year, can help inform their habits and get a better sense of where this person is spending the majority of their time, whether it\u2019s at home, the office, or on the go. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Creating a psychographic outline of each persona will help UX designers understand what motivates their audience<\/a> and will inform how that person will interact with the product. Building this part of the user persona allows you to get inside their mind and understand their behaviors. This will especially affect the way they\u2019ll ultimately connect with your design: whether it\u2019s via tablet, phone, or on the big screen, the logistics around how your personas will consume media should be kept top-of-mind. Here are a few ideas of questions to ask about your persona to get a better sense of their mentality, but keep in mind you should tailor your questions to your product: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Use the other elements of your profile to inform these psychographic assumptions. For example, someone in their early 20s with a minimum wage job probably isn\u2019t going to spend big money on luxury items or travel alone, but they would be more likely to try new things and take risks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once you have a clear outline of your user personas, create a one-page summary of their identity. In a one-page summary, clearly define your user persona and create a compelling narrative that helps create a genuine, empathetic bond<\/a> with your fictional character. Be sure not to exaggerate or overstate any elements of the persona, while still providing a detailed report. A realistic model is the most helpful model and will garner the best results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As is true for most things, one is never enough. Bob Ruffolo, CEO of IMPACT, an inbound marketing company, recommends that businesses<\/a> \u201chave at least a couple of buyer personas, but you don’t want to have too many, either.\u201d The recommended number of personas according to Boz Zou, co-founder and CEO of UM Systems is between 3 and 8. \u201cThere isn\u2019t really a magic number a brand or project should follow,\u201d said Zou. \u201cbut it is generally recognized that 3-8 personas are sufficient in most cases.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n When user experience design<\/a> teams achieve well-researched, well-thought-out personas, they\u2019re able to leverage an extremely powerful tool. As a result, the design process as a whole becomes less complex and less prone to errors that lead to convoluted re-do\u2019s or misaligned team goals. Personas are key to guiding the ideation process in a way that remains mindful and empathetic\u2014as they maintain that the real end-user always remains top of mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since you’re here The best design is the design that knows its users. When it comes to creating UX designs that feel easy, functional, and intuitive, teams should aim to create experiences with their ideal audience in mind. It\u2019s more than just anticipating a user\u2019s needs and pain points, it\u2019s actually more about understanding who your specific user […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":10851,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_eb_attr":"","_eb_data_table":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[123],"tags":[],"marketing_tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-10779","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-design"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.springboard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10779"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.springboard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.springboard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.springboard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.springboard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10779"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.springboard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47867,"href":"https:\/\/www.springboard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10779\/revisions\/47867"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.springboard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.springboard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.springboard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.springboard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10779"},{"taxonomy":"marketing_tags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.springboard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/marketing_tags?post=10779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What Is a User Persona?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.springboard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/user-persona-the-basics-1.jpeg\")
\n
Get To Know Other\tDesign Students<\/h4>
![\"Trevor](\"https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/springboard-images\/image\/upload\/v1638213299\/Student%20Success\/Trevor_Tillery_125x125.png\")
<\/a>![\"Sharon](\"https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/springboard-images\/image\/upload\/v1629203193\/Student%20Success\/Sharon_Yeun_Kim_125x125.png\")
<\/a>![\"Kelly](\"https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/springboard-images\/image\/upload\/v1629203193\/Student%20Success\/Kelly_Hart_125x125.png\")
<\/a>Why Are User Personas Important?<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.springboard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/User-Experience-Empathy-Map-scaled.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nHow To Create User Personas: 3 Key Questions To Take Into Account<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
1. Who Are They?<\/strong><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.springboard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/User-Persona-Example.png\")
2. What Do They Do?<\/strong><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n
3. How Do They Think?<\/strong><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n
Putting It All Together<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong>If you want to work in design, you can. It\u2019s that simple. With our UX Bootcamp<\/a>, we’ll help you launch your design career in 9 months or less. Browse our free UX salary guide<\/a> to see what you could be making<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"