UX Glossary · P
Persona
A research-based description of a user type, used to keep design decisions anchored to real people.
A persona is a concise description of a user type, built from research: their goals, context, constraints, level of expertise and what they are trying to achieve. Alan Cooper introduced the technique and set it out in The Inmates Are Running the Asylum (1999).
The purpose is decision-making. “Would this work for Anja, who supervises four sites and checks her phone between jobs” is answerable. “Would this work for users” is not.
What separates a useful persona from a bad one
Research. A persona assembled in a workshop from assumptions is a stereotype with a stock photograph, and it is worse than nothing because it launders opinion as evidence.
The contents that earn their place are behavioural: what the person is trying to do, what gets in the way, what they already know, what environment they are in. Demographics rarely predict behaviour and mostly pad the document.
The main criticism
Personas can flatten variation and become decoration on a wall. Jobs to be Done emerged partly in response, arguing the circumstance matters more than the person.
Both hold. The persona says who and in what context; the job says what progress they want.
In practice
Three or four is usually the working limit. More than that and nobody remembers them, which means they stop being used in arguments, which was the entire point.