UXPA Boston Conference 2018

Personas are widely used design tools among UX teams. Whether we favor personas in our toolkit or not, it is inevitable that researchers will be confronted with questions about what they do, contain, and provide. The enduring love-hate relationship with personas is determined by the utility of the content and efficacy to align and inform design teams about users/customers. Researchers must be prepared to answer questions about personas, and ensure that existing or potential use of personas has actual meaning to the business and the offering.

As consultants, we have observed that the most effective and useful personas are those with an origin story. An origin story is a description of processes that led to the persona development, and a description of the landscape of customer population against which the personas can be contextualized.

Origin stories provide:
• context about the persona’s genesis and evolution
• clarity as to what relates personas to each other and the business
• a roadmap for sustainable, continued insight into the lives of customers
The origin story is a layer of meta-information that frames the persona set in a cohesive narrative, which in turns brings more credibility to the processes that created them.
Attendees will learn about the importance of developing persona origin stories, as well as a process for examining internal persona-informing processes. The presenter will share tactical techniques and mindset considerations for creating or evolving personas positioned around an origin story.