1. A Quick Guide to Personas Created by Morgan Caputo in collaboration with The Product Path March, 2014

2. BrainstormHypothesize Validate & Iterate Communicate The Persona Process You start with a quick sketch of one archetypal user. You turn a brainstorming session into a hypothesis that you can test. You validate the persona by meeting real users! You share the persona with everyone, to facilitate communication about your audience, product & goals.

3. Always begin by asking, What are we trying to do? Expert User New User Average User You are making a persona about a user type …doing something with your product Sharing photos with friends eSigning a contract Renting a movie

4. The Anatomy of a Persona Name Title or Role Age Location Who is this guy? Write a character description Job, marital status, kids, hobbies Discuss tech usage Expertise, as related to your product What is he doing with your product? Create task scenarios Consider what he is trying to get done/what his goals are, as he uses your product. What does he hate? Opportunities Fill in a sentence like… Make it easier for him to ________ Help him understand __________ Make him more efficient by______

5. _______________________________ Name _______________________________ Title or Role _______________________________ Age _______________________________ Location Who is this person? ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Tech usage ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Expertise, as related to your product ____________________________________________________________ What is she/he doing with your product? ____________________________________________________________ Task scenario(s) and goals ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ What does she/he hate? ____________________________________________________________ Opportunities ____________________________________________________________ “Make it easier for her/him to…” ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ “Help her/him understand…” ____________________________________________________________ Sketch a quick portrait

6. Validate and Iterate You can validate characteristics from your persona independently For instance, you might discover that you had the user’s age totally wrong, but you caught a ton of great pain points. Look for patterns and evolve your personas You can confirm or eliminate assumptions when you see a valid pattern in three or more users. Iterate to keep updating and validating your personas. Transform your brainstorming notes Pull out themes and condense your sketch into an interesting story Go out and meet real users! You need to find the right type of users doing the thing you are studying

7. Communicate Practically everyone can use personas Use personas to develop empathy - your characters give everyone a story to talk around. Open up communication about your audience, your product and your goals. Product Manager UX Developers Sales Marketing