User Persona Development

🧑🏼 How To Design Better Personas In UX (https://lnkd.in/eGPXmPNZ), a step-by-step guide to reduce decoration and add meaningful data to make personas more helpful and effective. Neatly put together by Slava Shestopalov. ✅ We need to know who users are and what they need to do. ✅ We can use both personas and Jobs-to-Be-Done for that. 🤔 They serve different purposes and focus on different things. ✅ Jobs-to-Be-Done focuses on user needs and outcomes. ✅ Personas focus on users, their behavior and mental model. ✅ Useful personas emerge from profound user research. ✅ They help visualize users, their goals and motivation. 🚫 Don’t focus on demographics to avoid stereotypes. ✅ Include the way of thinking, background, “a day in life”. ✅ Always add at least one persona with a disability. ✅ Add a story, pain points and how they use your product. ✅ List user’s habits/products they use daily, often and rarely. ✅ Finally, add needs, wants and fears mentioned by users. ✅ Then, prioritize key points for each role in your team. We often speak about personas being an outdated tool, successfully replaced by Jobs-to-Be-Done. Yet often in practice they are compatible. Both move the focus to user needs, yet they shed light onto user from different perspectives. Knowing how users think, behave and feel is as important as what they do. As Page Laubheimer noted, personas help remove box-checking mentality. They tell a story of the customer, what their environment is, what their habits are, the tools they use daily — and give product teams a way to think about users in a much more approachable and tangible way. Ultimately, use what works for you and for your team: just make sure that the user details aren’t invented, and root in actual research with actual customers. Useful resources: Personas vs. Jobs-to-Be-Done, by Page Laubheimer https://lnkd.in/eHA2Ft4J A Guide To Building Personas For UX, by Maze https://lnkd.in/ehCzACZW Personas for UX, Product, and Design Teams, by UserInterviews https://lnkd.in/eeE3pVUK A Simple Guide To Personas, by Rikke Friis Dam, Yu Siang Teo https://lnkd.in/eRA52v5m Five-Steps Framework for Building Better Personas, by Nikki Anderson, MA https://lnkd.in/eGWpqkdz Fixing User Personas, by Jordan Bowman https://lnkd.in/eDPCr63Q Personas Make Users Memorable, by Aurora Harley https://lnkd.in/eh-PYMxc A Closer Look At Personas (A Series), by Mo Goltz https://lnkd.in/eGqbr9wy https://lnkd.in/eBDsSsaR #ux #design #research

I often felt that user research and creating personas were a guessing game and a waste of time. I was wrong. Here is how to ensure the research brings great results: It can indeed feel like a pointless exercise when you're doing research just to check a box, or when your personas end up being a slide nobody ever opens again. The truth is, only good research drives good decisions. So, why isn't it always good? 1) You interview too few people, or only those easy to reach Talking to just five people from your internal network or friends of friends rarely gives you a full picture. If you don't capture a range of motivations and use cases, you're likely building for a narrow and biased segment. 2) You ask leading questions When people sense what you want to hear, they try to be nice. This results in empty validation that hides the real frictions they face. 3) You stop at surface-level insights If the notes are a collection of generic statements like "I want it to be easy to use," you’re not learning anything actionable. Real insights come from digging into stories, context, and behavior. 4) Your findings aren't actionable Insights without a direct impact on what you're building tend to fade into the background. If you can't point to how research shaped a feature or decision, it's just noise. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 • Focus on behavior, not opinion: Asking people to describe what they did in a specific situation reveals more truth than asking them what they want. • Pattern recognition for the win: It’s tempting to anchor on one powerful quote, but decisions based on isolated comments are dangerous. The goal is to spot repeated patterns across interviews and use those to inform the product direction. • Co-create personas with your team: This way, they use them, not ignore them. Personas made in isolation often fail because they don’t feel real or relevant. Involving designers, engineers, and even sales in creating personas helps ensure they are grounded in actual experience and get referenced often.    𝗧𝗼𝗼𝗹𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗽 • Maze makes it easy to run user tests without scheduling interviews. It’s great for testing flows, copy, and concepts with actual users at scale. • WhiteBridge.ai helps you to identify similar people or talk to completely fresh prospects. • Dovetail allows you to tag and synthesize interview data efficiently. You can quickly identify themes and build a research repository that your team can access anytime.    Remember, if you can't do it right, you shouldn't do it at all. There are other ways to make the best product bets possible. Do you trust in your user research? Sound off in the comments! #productmanagement #productmanager #userresearch P.S. To become a Product Manager who can perform good research, be sure to check out my courses on www. drbartpm. com :)

The importance of overlaying personas to demographics when exploring nuances in data. Want to avoid putting your ad in front of Ozzy Osbourne when you wanted to target King Charles? I love insights. Market research. Audience understanding, whatever you want to call it. To quote Hayel Wartemberg, "Storytelling without research is just guessing." Research is a vital part of the creative and communication chain. But the second part of his quote showcases where we as in industry need to get better... "Research without storytelling is just reporting." The pic I've shared is a fave of mine because it shines a light on the terrible state of the market research industry. We lazily group huge numbers of people together based on having similar demographic realities. Whether that's the GEN-Z obsession, chatting to the BAME lot or combining genders with sexualities. This approach leads to lazy and blanketed ideas of how people in those groups think, feel, purchase and behave. I get it, we want to mass target and attempt to make our jobs easier - so intersectionality is ignored. And it’s probably why you receive ads for products that you wouldn’t touch with a barge pole. So here's the solution we have at Word on the Curb: 💅 Overlay personas and interest groups to protected characteristics. Targeting purely based on demographics doesn’t create the granularity you may think. A Black, 25 year old man from London may have more similar interests with a White, 45 year old woman from Sheffield, than his own brother. If you want to target effectively, learn as much as you can about the human. 🎨 Obsess over mixed methods research - market research is the most powerful industry in uncovering and painting a picture of societal realities. It’s a blank canvas. Quant research to me is the outline. Qual research is the colour between the lines. You need to do both to understand society effectively. 📺 Challenge stereotypes consistently: we all suffer from unconscious bias. Perceptions of groups we may not be familiar with are formed by media portrayals. We all need to own up to it and challenge ourselves to uncover realities by staying hungry in learning about audiences. Be always-on with your insights approaches - our products allow you to do that pretty easily. Research, creative and media agencies will keep failing their brands by trying to cut corners. Constantly attempting to lower costs and time spent in field whilst attempting to effectively reach audiences (especially those who have been historically marginalised) is a Mathematical error. Remember, storytelling without research is just guessing.

Personalization in ads without GenAI is a myth. For years, marketers have tried to deliver “the right message to the right person at the right time.” But without GenAI, personalization has always been surface-level: limited to targeting segments, not tailoring content. In a recent Meta case study we partnered on (soon to be published), we tested persona-based text generation inside Advantage+ creative. The AI automatically produced unique copy variations for distinct customer archetypes, like a gift-giver versus a trend-seeker, ensuring each group saw messaging designed for them. The impact was clear: ↘️ Lower cost-per-action ↗️ Higher click-through rates 🙌 Audiences that actually felt understood The reality is, you can’t personalize at scale with human effort alone. GenAI is what turns personalization from aspiration into reality - transforming creative into something dynamic, resonant, and profitable.

This is abundantly evident in the superficial persona archetypes that abound in Indian design projects. The ‘naïve village woman’, the ‘tradition-bound elderly man’, the ‘tech-savvy urban millennial’ — these cardboard tropes reflect skewed outsider impressions rather than grounded cultural insights. Such personas impose simplistic stereotypes and homogenize the intricate diversity of Indian socio-cultural realities. Far from capturing multiplicities, personas penalize differences and masquerade consumer fantasies as user representations.   Personas often manifest as instruments that reinforce pernicious biases rooted in caste, gender, race, religion and class. Model personas are overwhelmingly skewed towards reflecting elite, upper-caste and metropolitan subject positions, amplifying only a thin slice of premium users. Moreover, in replicating problematic stereotypes of marginalized identities, persona-based research methodologies reproduce existing hierarchies and exclusions instead of exposing them. This severely constrains their ability to generate insights into the needs of subaltern, oppressed and vulnerable populations. https://lnkd.in/d557sVUu #userexperience #userpersona #stereotypes #empathy #designthinking #decolonization

Breaking into new personas in 2025? Here's how to leverage AI to build persona-based messaging. ⛔️ Mistake: Don't wing it with new personas. Don't set up your reps for failure. ✅ Step 1: Gather great data Persona creation is garbage in / garbage out. Feed AI with solid info: - Transcripts of sales calls - Competitor content - Key influencers to follow - Transcripts of customer calls ✅ Step 2: Feed into AI I like ChatGPT. But this can work with the others. Leverage this prompt: Take the attached [sales call transcripts, case studies, etc] and turn this into an Outbound Squad Messaging Matrix. The messaging should be written using the customer’s voice. This messaging matrix should be formatted into a table with these four columns: 1) Priorities Format this into a statement like this: [headline]. [outcome] + [avoid problem]. - Headline: What is top of mind for your prospect’s peers? Imagine you have a dozen of your prospects gathered in a room. All working at similar companies in the same role. What is top of mind for that entire group right now? What trends are they worried about or focused on? What do they want your help with? - Outcome: What outcomes do they want? What are the specific outcomes, metrics, or KPIs they want to improve? - Avoid problem: What problem do they want to avoid? What problem are they hoping to address or solve? Here's an example: Skill gaps & staffing. Find and attract the right talent to accomplish our IT business goals—while avoiding unnecessary costs and project delays. 2) Current solutions Now think about how the prospect is getting the job done. People: Are they hiring, reducing headcount, etc? Process: Are they implementing a specific process? Technology: Are they using technology? A competitor? 3) Problems Problems are what get in the way of priorities. This is what your prospect hopes their current solution will help with. This sounds like: “Manually processing payroll is labor intensive and frustrating for me.” But get to the impact on the business. This sounds like: “Our team is manually processing payroll across multiple systems. We need to hire extra employees just to handle the manual work, and we can’t hire as quickly as we need to. We won’t hit our hiring targets this year.” Help me define the problem in the customer's voice. 4) Aspirations This is your prospect’s desired future state. These should be similar to the outcomes your solution provides to your customers. ~~~ This is for: [company name] who sells [solution] to [persona]. Example clients of theirs are [insert examples] ✅ Step 3: Validate findings with real buyers NEVER rely on AI alone. - Take this to similar personas at your org - Take it to board members - Hire industry-expert consultants - Validate with customers ~~~ Leverage this approach to quickly build persona-based messaging to help your outbound/selling efforts. Was this helpful? Tag someone on your team who could benefit from this.

Data alone can often feel impersonal and hard to relate to but professionals have found an interesting way around it - at least in the consulting world. I found it interesting that Bain & Company tackles this by using "customer journey mapping" - an approach that transforms data into vivid narratives about relatable customer personas. The process starts by creating detailed personas that represent key customer groups. For example, when working on the UK rail network, Bain created the persona of "Sarah" - a suburban working mom whose struggles with delays making her miss her daughter's events felt all too real. With personas established as protagonists, Bain meticulously maps their end-to-end journeys, breaking it down into a narrative arc highlighting every interaction and pain point. Using techniques like visual storyboards and real customer anecdotes elevates this beyond just experience mapping into visceral storytelling. The impact is clear - one study found a 35% boost in stakeholder buy-in when Bain packaged its conclusions as customer journey stories versus dry analysis. By making customers the heroes and positioning themselves as guides resolving their conflicts, Bain taps into the power of storytelling to inspire change. Whether mapping personal experiences or bringing data to life, leading firms realize stories engage people and shape beliefs far more than just reciting facts and figures. Narratives make even complex ideas resonate at a human level in ways numbers alone cannot.

We’ve all heard of audience personas. But what if you could look beyond demographics and see how a persona thinks, behaves, and buys in real time? That’s exactly what I did today using Momentro, diving into the “Coffee Lovers” persona while comparing Barista Coffee Company Limited and t-Lounge by Dilmah but instead of focusing on search or content, I went deeper into behaviour. ☕ The “Coffee Lovers” Persona in Sri Lanka. 📌 Behavioural Trends: Actively follow slow living, café culture, and minimalism creators on YouTube. Prefer review led content over ads. Blend indulgence with wellness interested in both high-end desserts and clean living. 📌 Influencer Signals: Gravitate towards authentic, often micro-influencers who feel like trusted voices. Example: I checked out Alison Wijemanne who popped up in the F&B influencer space. Momentro provided me her category strength (food, beverage & travel) her brand history, her sentiment index (largely green = safe bet for partnerships) and some of the brands she has worked with in the past too. 📌 Brand Affinities: Engage with Barista, Dilmah T-Lounge, Java Lounge (Pvt) Ltd, Peppermint Cafe, Ibsons Choice Cafe, and even Starbucks — suggesting they blend local pride with global taste. 📌 Pain Points & Opportunities of coffee lovers in Sri Lanka: Tired of copy-paste content Seek genuine café experiences and behind-the-scenes narratives Want to feel spoken to, not marketed at For Content Teams: This is a Gold Mine. Most content teams are briefed with assumptions: “Target millennials,” “Make it Gen Z-friendly,” “Do something trendy.” But with Momentro, your creative team gets the nuance: -What this persona wants to hear -What frustrates them -What formats they consume -What tone feels authentic vs performative -Build campaigns based on what this persona already consumes -Choose influencers that align with their behavioural identity -Tailor content formats (YouTube > Facebook, micro > macro) No more content roulette. You build stories rooted in reality, pain points, motivations, peer influence, and preferred channels. Suddenly, your next campaign isn’t just more relevant. It’s more wanted! #marketing #influencermarketing #personaanalysis #microinfluencers #momentro

Why Buyer Personas Are Often Useless (Unless You Do Them Right) Buyer personas. Every marketer talks about them, but how many of us actually use them to drive real results? Too often, buyer personas are treated as an exercise in check-box marketing: Create a template, fill in some basic demographics, and call it a day. But this is a recipe for wasting time and burning calories. The real power of buyer personas lies in the depth of insight they provide about the emotional, psychological, and behavioral triggers of your target audience. When done right, personas become your roadmap for everything—product decisions, messaging, marketing strategies, and sales enablement. But when done wrong, they’re useless. So, how should you approach Buyer Personas? 1. Go Beyond Demographics It’s easy to create personas based on age, job title, and income. But that’s not what actually drives a purchase decision. You need to understand why your customers buy your product—what pain points are they solving, what motivates them, and what stands in their way. 2. Focus on Behavior and Needs Instead of just a “one-size-fits-all” persona, segment by behavior and customer journey stage. Are they early-stage prospects or ready to buy? How do they interact with your product? Behavior speaks volumes. 3. Constantly Evolve Your personas shouldn’t be static! The market, technology, and customer needs evolve—so should your personas. Continuously gather feedback from your users, sales teams, and customer support. Buyer personas done right can drive growth, shape product development, and create hyper-targeted marketing strategies. But done poorly? They’re just another file on the shelf. #growthmarketing #buyerpersonas #marketing

HOW DO YOU MARKET TO PEOPLE AFRAID TO EVEN SAY THE WORDS “PAINFUL SEX” OR “POSTPARTUM DESIRE” OUT LOUD? One of the most rewarding parts of the MySine strategy project was defining detailed audience personas for a femtech brand operating in a highly sensitive, often taboo space. We didn’t want generic “women 18–35.” We wanted to understand their real lives, pain points, and needs. Some of our final personas included: • The Informed Intimacy Seeker: Urban, health-conscious, eager for scientific guidance. • The Quietly Curious: Private, cautious, needs anonymity to learn without shame. • The Postpartum Rediscoverer: Navigating identity, desire, and intimacy after childbirth. • The Cycle-Conscious Planner: Interested in hormone-driven libido changes, planning for pregnancy. We mapped their pain points (shame, misinformation, partner communication gaps) to specific messaging strategies and channels This wasn’t just segmentation—it was about empathy and inclusive design. ✨ Have you built audience personas for taboo or sensitive categories? I'd love to have a conversation and talk more.... . . . . #UserPersonas #AudienceStrategy #Femtech #DesignThinking #BrandStrategy