There I was again, in a 'workshop' with a research agency deciding on how many and what personas we needed to create for an online financial services application we were desiging. There were a number of opinions voiced about whether we need 4 or more personas; about whether we need a student or an engaged elder personas. It was as if everyone had already decided who we want to design for and all were ready to forget what the research has shown us.
Personas are the result, the product of research therefore, the nature, number and type of personas we develop depend on the research findings. Why not let the findings define the personas and then run a workshop to review and even attempt to consolidate personas into a primary and secondary ones? Why not let the research inform us on who the users are and stop double guessing and retrofitting our assumptions - and the client's assumptions - into the design of personas?
How did the workshop go? We managed to minimise the damage by asking the researchers to go back to their research and simply tell us what they found while we offered a template for putting together the persona visualisation.
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