Problem
In this Lesson
[Day 3/30: Product Manager to CEO 30 Day Challenge] Personas are fictional characters that represent your ideal users. They help you understand who you're designing for, and they provide a lens through which you can see what's important to your customers.
Why use personas?
Without personas, we often default to thinking about ourselves as users. This leads to designs that aren't always relevant or helpful for real people—or worse, designs that don't actually solve any problems.
How do I get started creating personas?
Start by asking yourself these questions: Who are the people who use my product/service? If you've already done our previous exercise - you know who your users are. But there might be different characteristics that bind them into 1, 2 or more "characteristic groups". The best way to create user personas is to start by listing out the different types of users, then creating a list of their characteristics: age, gender, income level, education level, occupation, location, etc. Then write down everything you know about each user type that's not obvious from their demographics—for example: what kind of hobbies they have, what they like to do on weekends, whether they have pets.
Once you've created a list of all the users who might be interested in using your product, think about how they would interact with it—what kind of problems do they encounter with current solutions? What tasks might they want to accomplish? What would they value if you were to present them a solution to their problem?
