Overview
Personas are an integral part of the user experience (UX) design process. They describe our users, their habits, and their goals towards the product being built. Although they put a face and a story to multiple users, some folks wonder whether personas make an adequate bridge between deep user insights and a company’s business goals. As designers, we know there is value in understanding users and designing around their needs. But how can we sell user research when the way we have traditionally built personas do not always consider the business benefit – the “what’s in it for me?” that is so crucial to achieving alignment and buy-in?
In this session, Jem will be looking at a hybrid approach towards persona development. By combining the time-honored tactics of persona creation – such as user interviews, primary and secondary research, contextual inquiry, etc. – with strategic business planning methods, Jem will be building personas that consider the user’s behavioral narrative and the business conditions that give rise to your product. He will identify some user types who could be your target customer and think of ways at which you – through your product or service (e.g. websites, mobile apps, chatbots, etc.) – can support their needs. Don’t throw the baby with the bathwater! Let contextual personas deliver the insight you need to build digital experiences that users love.
Objective
Make Personas Great Again!!!
Target Audience
User experience designers, business owners, product owners/managers, project managers, developers
Five Things Audience Members Will Learn
- Personas: for and against (a.k.a. what are personas and how have they changed throughout the years?)
- Scenario planning and how it helps create digital products that people love
- The jobs to be done framework and how to operationalize it
- How to avoid ego-first development and shift to empathy-driven design strategy
- Make user experience research actionable and relevant to business goals.
