Designed for Use

Takeaway Points

• Personas are imaginary people who represent specific groups of users in your target audience.

• Personas are not for everybody. Maintaining them takes time, and it’s sometimes easy to project your own ideas onto a persona.

• Personas do not replace user research; they merely help you incorporate the results from user research into your product.

• Personas help you evaluate the information you find during user research, focus your product on a well-defined group of people, and communicate within the design team.

• Use personas to help with design decisions. Instead of talking about generic “users,” talk about concrete personas. These are questions to ask: Who is this feature for? Will any of your personas want to use it? What kind of preexisting ...