This document provides guidance on creating effective personas to represent target user groups. It discusses the 5 key steps: 1. Discovery - Conducting research through interviews, surveys, focus groups and data analysis to understand user traits. 2. Definition - Identifying and refining potential personas based on research findings. 3. Design - Creating visual representations of the personas through images and infographics to bring them to life. 4. Getting Results - Introducing the personas to teams and integrating them into processes like brainstorming and prioritization. 5. Ongoing Relationship - Maintaining the personas through visible communications and ongoing discussion to ensure effective usage. The document emphasizes conducting thorough research,

1. ACCOUNT
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Targeting the people that matter most
CORE
TO
AURA
CREATING
POWERFUL
PERSONAS

2. ACCOUNT
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PLANNING
Personas change the perspective to simplify design and development decisions. By creating a concept
consumer, we uncover valuable insights that provide development teams with fertile ground to create.
WHY CREATE PERSONAS?
I think it
should
be designed
like this
BECOMES
Let’s design it
the way
our guy
would use it

3. WHO USES THEM & WHY
Personas are today used extensively in some of the world most forward thinking organisations to create a closer
connection with the audiences that matter most. Personas help marketing teams bridge the gap between the
desires, needs and expectations of customers on one hand, and the product team’s assumptions on the other.

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The power of personas is their ability to distil a wide variety of traits and statistics
into a composite, much like a police sketch. And as with the police sketch, a poor
likeness yields poor results. A persona constructed out of assumption is worse
than useless, it’s likely to be counter-productive.
A WORD OF CAUTION

5. Personas define fundamental qualities of a subset of users. As a rule, you want as few as possible,
even if that means segments of the audience are overlooked. The size of your audience and
type of brand or product will determine how many personas are needed. A skate shop will likely
need one. A car model might require two. A credit card, ISP or bank might need up to six. Beyond
that it starts to become meaningless.
GETTING THE NUMBER RIGHT

6. It’s the ultimate sophistication, if Aristotle is to be believed. What you’re trying to achieve is pair of
shoes anyone can step into - it captures the essence of the person and insights about them as
elegantly as possible. People don’t read walls of text. Once you’re done designing, edit harshly.
SIMPLICITY SPEAKS LOUDEST

7. STEP 2
DISCOVERY
STEP 3
DEFINITION
STEP 4
DESIGN
STEP 1
COMPONENTS
STEP 5
GETTING RESULTS
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8. STEP 1
COMPONENTS
The big goal is to create a persona that reflects the archetype of each audience
accurately.. There is no set-in-stone template. I generally modify my personas
according to the brand - a soft-edged consumer brand might have a longer-form
storytelling style, where a B2B product will have more data points and bullet lists.

9. COMPONENTS
NAME SURNAME
CONCEPTUAL TITLE
Demographics
Image
About
Salient
Quote
Goals Motivators
Pain
Points
Routine Watering Holes
There is no one correct way to compile a persona, but the
sections contained in this example are common to most.
Successful personas are about honing a large amount of
information in meaningful ways, not filling in a template.

10. COMPONENTS
IMAGE
The image instantly contextualises your persona – demographics,
personality and style. Collect a folder of potential candidates and shortlist by
elimination. Try to avoid posed images and the facetious ‘stock image’ look,
Look for a shot that’s in the moment.

11. COMPONENTS
NAME SURNAME
What’s in a name? Name should of course be appropriate to race,
nationality, age and gender, but can also infer character and personality
traits (picture the people behind the names ‘Candy’, ‘Katherine’ and ‘Maude’)

12. COMPONENTS
CONCEPTUAL TITLE
Conceptual titles are not essential, but can situate your persona within a
broader group in a couple of words. Examples: Time-poor Techie,
Onlookers, The Thinker. You can combine name and conceptual title into
something like ‘Frugal Frank’. Avoid cliche’s like ‘Soccer Mom’.

13. COMPONENTS
DEMOGRAPHICS
This is the standard list of quantitative features of your synthesised individual, and
will likely include age, gender, income, marital status and number of dependents,
but could include details such as religion, political leaning and type of residence.
While the target group might incorporate both genders, your persona will reflect
one. Take care to consider which features are critical, informative or dispensable,
and only include the first two.

14. COMPONENTS
ABOUT &
SALIENT QUOTE
How much you elect to include in your persona impacts its effectiveness. In
some cases, either a quote or an about section will do. In some cases, you
may want to include both.
The About should sum up your individual in a few crafted sentences. Every
sentence needs to be relevant to the brand. What is this person’s day like?
Are they outgoing and spontaneous? What do they feel about change?
Your salient quote is taken from their perspective. It should be an insight that
captures their goals, motivations or desires concisely and powerfully.

15. COMPONENTS
GOALS,
MOTIVATORS
& PAIN POINTS
This section describes the forces that drive your persona, and is the most
critical and valuable component. This section is where the majority of your
work needs to be done. If you rely on gut and assumption, you’re likely
going to be wide of the mark.

16. COMPONENTS
DAILY ROUTINE &
WATERING HOLES
These sections are non-essential, and will largely be determined by your
intent in creating the personas. For communications and advertising, they
are usually essential, less so for product development or retail experiences.
This area of the persona looks at where your audience is finding their
information, what influences their decision making, and the intersections in
their everyday where large swathes of them can be reached.

17. COMPONENTS
NAME SURNAME
JOB TITLE
Overview
Image
A Day in the Life
Work
Activities
Leisure
Activities
Goals
Fears
Aspirations
Computer
Skills
Technology
Attributes
An alternative persona developed by Microsoft. Emphasis
on technology and international variations of the persona
reflect their business. Every Microsoft persona is backed
by an in-depth research dossier.
Quotes
International
Differences
Demographics

18. STEP 2
DISCOVERY
In most cases, a brand or product will include a prescribed target.
While this can be a good starting point, and will likely have a
close semblance to your final persona, I recommend ignoring
the given audience, and developing the persona from scratch.
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19. DISCOVERY
THE TEAM
If you’re fortunate to have resources to apply to your persona
development exercise, try and draw from a wide range of disciplines
and specialities. Microsoft’s persona team includes product planners,
usability engineers, interaction designers, market researchers, and
technical writers. Broader perspective equals richer result.

20. DISCOVERY
The people at the front lines of a business have an intimate understanding
of the traits, wants, desires and frustrations of their customers, yet so rarely
get to talk to the people tasked with communicating the brand.
The single most important step in this exercise is to seek them out and
plumb their knowledge of the client base. This group will include:
ASK!
SALES
STAFF
CLIENT
MANAGERS
PERSONAL
ASSISTANTS
COMPLAINT
TEAMS
CALL
CENTRE

21. DISCOVERY
FOCUS GROUP
If you’re fortunate to have the budget and time to assemble a focus
group, it is an invaluable resource for honing your persona. More often,
focus groups will be assembled for other reasons. Throw in some of the
questionnaire questions that follow as an introduction. Also, find out if any
videos exist from past focus group and look there for insights.

22. DISCOVERY
Online surveys are most effective when you have direct access to a database of
existing clients, but can also work by approaching communities that fall within
primary or secondary audiences. Facebook and LinkedIn groups, hobbyist sites
and industry portals all offer access. Vet the results carefully and weed out
responses from individuals not within the target parameters.
ONLINE SURVEY
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23. DISCOVERY
To uncover the right information, you have ask the right questions. Tailor
your own questionnaire to the specifics of your brand or product, in
addition to:
• The demographic profiles of the average customer, including age,
gender, education, income, marital status, number of dependents etc.
• Employment, career path and company profile
• What happens in their typical day?
• Where do they aspire to be in 5 years? Where are they likely to be then?
• What are their major challenges and complaints?
• How tech savvy are they?
• How open are they to change and new ideas?
• What drives and motivates them? What does success mean to them?
• What social media are they on? What sites do they frequent?
• What associations do they belong to?
• Where do they get their information about the business?
• What are their shopping habits? Online or brick & mortar?
• What do they watch and read?
• What do they do to relax?
QUESTIONNAIRE

24. DISCOVERY
WEB ANALYTICS
Google Analytics offers a wealth of insightful information about the
demographics, browsing behaviour, interests and trends of the visitors
to your company website. Breaking this down into the pages each group
browse is an invaluable source of primary data for persona development.

25. DISCOVERY
Expand the search as wide as possible to include field studies, competitor analyses,
trend reports, ethnographic studies and any other data that can assist in forming a
clear and more complete persona. In this phase of the Persona development, simply
aim to collate and curate – find what’s relevant and keep it in check until the
definition phase that follows.
INDUSTRY RESEARCH

26. STEP 3
DEFINITION
After compiling as much as you possibly can about the audience, the
process shifts into identifying, refining and enriching your personas.
Definition is most effective as a collaborative activity with a diverse team.

27. DEFINITION
IDENTIFICATION
A successful persona emerges like a bust from a block of marble.
Identification is the first rough shape. Usually, by the end of the Discovery
phase, you’ll have a strong idea of the number of personas and their
characteristics by this stage.
Find a wall or whiteboard and divide it into the number of personas you’re
creating, and place a conceptual title for each one in the centre.

28. DEFINITION
PROCESS
The power of personas comes through accuracy and refinement. Although
you might have a ton of exciting data compiled on your individual, the
magic comes in identifying what matters and polishing that to a high
shine. Colour coding the information on stickies and putting it all in front of
you is a great starting point before whittling it down to the gems.
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29. DEFINITION
LEVEL OF DETAIL
One of the toughest parts of creating your persona is determining what to
include, and what to leave out. Much of this will be informed by the task
your persona is expected to perform. If its to define an advertising
audience or inspire content, very little detail is necessary. If instead it is
intended for design of a new operating system, more information is
inevitable.
As demonstrated in the next section, the design of the persona content
should bring the persona to life for the design team, and with every
superfluous detail you add, this impact is diminished.

30. DEFINITION
SANITY CHECK
You’re done with compiling your persona, and you believe you’ve got it spot on. A sanity
check is a great way to ensure your high level characteristics align with the detail you’ve
included, particularly if you’ve had to rely on more guesswork than you’d have liked.
One way to do this is to try and find a few real life archetypes. Run your persona by them
and see whether everything resonates. Push them to be honest, and dig deep on the
sticking points. The bigger your sample here the better.
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31. STEP 4
DESIGN
The rise of digital means that design has a greater role to play in business today than at
any point before. This isn’t simply about how something looks, but about how it works,
how it communicates. Design is a critical to the success of your persona. How the
information is presented will determine how it is viewed, interpreted and put to work. It
will provide credibility.
If you are not skilled in design, I strongly recommend bringing a graphic designer in to
deliver the final product. It makes a world of difference.

32. DESIGN
RESONANCE
The impact your persona ultimately makes is largely down to how well it is
represented. As seen in the examples at the end of this presentation, the quality
of the design and layout has a significant impact on how it is perceived. If you
can’t have a professional help you, draw inspiration from well designed personas,
and carefully consider every aspect of the design, from the fonts and image
placement to the data visualisations.

33. DESIGN
INFOGRAPHICS
Nothing kills a persona faster than a bland wall of text. With a good
designer, the information in your persona can be transformed into a visual
language that gets the message across faster and more powerfully than
text alone. Infographics can compress masses of data into a simple
illustration, it can give abstract concepts meaning and can draw the eye
from section to section in a logical progression.

34. NARRATIVE
Personas are works of fiction, and are not intended to be constructed
entirely of hard data. As you tell the story, try to rely as much as possible
on qualitative findings and observations as you can. Every statement
must be carefully considered, crafted, questioned and reworded multiple
times before the final statement is cemented. Zero waffle. The more on
point you are, the more real your persona becomes.
DESIGN

35. SUPPORTING DATA
DESIGN
The more in depth your persona is, the more research and background information
you will have to support it. This can be invaluable to the user in the steps that
follow, so categorising, referencing, filing and attaching this information to your
persona is a must. Include all video of interviews and focus groups, and use a
footnote system to direct the reader to the relevant documents.

36. STEP 5
So you’ve poured passion and sweat into creating personas that resonate. Where to
now? Personas will often meet stiff resistance, particularly in hard-nosed engineering
or scientific workplaces. Develop a step-by-step plan for launching the personas
internally, with a medium term plan for integrating them into the daily processes.
GETTING RESULTS

37. RESULTS
INTRODUCING PERSONAS
I strongly suggest a two step approach. First, create a short, sharp presentation on
what personas are, why they’re effective, and which companies are using them.
There’s many great case studies online to back your argument.
Second, don’t reveal everything at once. Start with the name and image of each.
If you’ve got several, only introduce one per sitting. Aim to develop a first-name
relationship between the audience and the persona, and build up the personality
behind the persona over several days or weeks.
How personas are introduced should be determined by the audience. If the team is marketing and design
oriented, its likely that they’re going to be receptive; most other departments less so.

38. ONGOING RELATIONSHIP
The biggest pitfall in the persona exercise is a quick introduction and a quicker exit. If the
personas are not a prominent and integral part of the development process, they have failed.
For MicroSoft, personas were communicated through multiple channels in a progressive and
gradual process that invited feedback and user-generated ideas. They developed posters,
flyers, screen-savers, emailers and gimmick items like mousepads and stress balls. A microsite
was built with all supporting documents, persona tools and scenarios, as well as competitions
that encouraged users to imagine how personas would react to a given situation.
RESULTS

39. MAKE THEM VISIBLE
Personas cannot make themselves felt hidden away in a folder or as digital files.
Consider where and how personas will be used and produce materials to make
them larger than life. If you can, use models from your stock photo provider with
extensive photoshoots in different settings. Expand the salient quotes section,
and create posters with a new quote each time. Find innovate ways to build the
persona into the environment.
RESULTS
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40. PERSONA BRAINSTORMS
Once personas are introduced and revealed, they must be put
to work. Set formal brainstorm sessions for each persona using
IDEO’s brainstorm guidelines. Set clear objectives and tasks
for each of the team to continue development after the
brainstorm with the specific persona in mind.
RESULTS

41. DIGITAL DISCUSSION
Personas are most effective when they become a framer for development discussions:
“How would Amy use this feature?”, “Is this too complex for Amir?”. Create a
conversation forum online using Basecamp or JIRA, or add a sub-forum to your existing
project management tool, to facilitate discussion about the development from the
perspective of the personas.
RESULTS

42. PRIORITY MATRIX
The priority matrix is an excellent way to demonstrate the strength of personas, particularly in
product development. Every feature of the product is scored according to how each persona
would perceive and use it. Negative scores are given for features that would harm the user
experience. Each persona is weighted by his or her importance to the business and size of
market to ascertain which features should be pursued and which scrapped.
RESULTS
PERSONA 1 PERSONA 2 PERSONA 3 WEIGHTED
WEIGHTING 60 25 15
FEATURE 1 0 2 1 65
FEATURE 2 2 -1 0 95
FEATURE 3 1 1 2 115

43. ENRICHMENT & EVOLUTION
Solving and growing your persona is a great way to get them deeply
imbedded into the creative process. Document the results of brainstorms and
development were personas have been used, and publish them on the
forum. Invite users to offer their own salient quotes. When new qualitative
research emerges, use it to test the integrity of the personas, and tweak
them to build a more rounded and accurate archetype.
RESULTS

44. TESTIMONIALS
Personas work incredibly well in creating brand-building campaigns using customer
perspective as the concept. Testimonial style ads, online video, quotes and endorsement
developed from robust personas will resonate with the consumers they are intended to
represent. Personas ensure the target segments are on point, insights are built in, and multiple
facets of the needs, frustrations and motivations of each group are clearly communicated.
RESULTS

45. PERSONA MAPS
Fully fledged personas can be developed in a range of representations to show how they
relate to one another, how their motivations are different, or how a competitor may be
making inroads to key segments. These can be highly effective at the first stages of the
design process, allowing for abstract positioning of the product relative to its audiences,
RESULTS

46. The following slides incorporate a range of persona styles and designs used
by world leading companies.
GREAT EXAMPLES

47. Personas for development of a car care app. Strong
salient quote and good use of infographics but the
description could be more concise.

48. Personas for stock
photo and footage site
corbis.com. Mood
board is an interesting
touch. Needs/Tasks/
Knowledge matrix
relates directly to the
product.

49. Fantastic persona set for Disney’s
movie consumers. Each persona is
distinct, clearly defined and contrasted
with the others. Information is
beautifully crafted and presented.

50. Conceptual designs for betting site BetFair for
web developers. Compelling design and good
focus on the user journey.

51. Persona development exercise for a
graduate design portfolio. Refined, well
designed and freshly presented.

52. Persona for American Express highlighting
the usage patterns for their points rewards

53. Persona for Belkin Energy App

54. Interesting persona contrasting the different
approaches Millennials and Boomers take to
their careers

55. Another example with Millennials as customers.
Headlines of each section are great examples of
a lot of information distilled into a single phrase.
Far more data driven than most personas.

56. Personas for Environ’s skincare range. Vertical
design contrasts the differences between each
group clearly.

57. Persona exercise highlighting the
behaviours of six social media usage
groups and how to reach them.