Archetype

An archetype is a user type reduced to what matters for design decisions: what this kind of person is trying to do, how they go about it, and what gets in their way. There is no stock photo, no first name, no hobbies. It is a persona with the decoration removed.

Why strip it down

The personal details are the part people remember and the part that does the least work. “Maria, 34, loves hiking” makes a team nod, then argue about whether Maria would click the button. The detail invites speculation about one imagined individual, when the design question is about a pattern of behaviour.

An archetype keeps the discussion on behaviour. In a B2B tool you might have “the occasional approver”, who logs in twice a week, needs to decide quickly and never learns the full interface, and “the daily operator”, who lives in the product and wants shortcuts. Those two descriptions settle plenty of design questions without a single invented biography.

Archetype versus persona

The difference is one of degree, and teams use the words loosely. Roughly: a persona tries to feel like a real person so that stakeholders will empathise; an archetype tries to be a precise, reusable description so that designers can decide. Industrial and enterprise work, where users are defined by role and task rather than lifestyle, often suits archetypes better.

Common mistake

Stripping the details but also stripping the evidence. An archetype still needs to rest on research, or on honestly labelled assumptions, never on a guess dressed as fact.