- Published on
Solve your User Problem and Understand their Behavior using Persona
- Authors
- Name
- Advis Tasyah Mulia
- @licacila_
i am sorry but we are not talking about the game, more than that we’re going to research people behavior
The business process of a product involves the needs and behaviors of users towards the provided product. To ensure the success of a product in the market, a theory focusing on users is essential. This concept is known as the user-centered workflow, where every process in the product (especially digital products) involves users providing insights and feedback. When implementing the user-centered workflow theory, one approach that can be utilized is creating user personas.
“People will love and support you when it’s convenient for them” — Anonymous
Getting to Know User Personas Better
In the field of digital product design, UI/UX designers are closely related to user personas. User Persona is a detailed description of an imagined character who represents a potential user of the digital product being developed. Personas provide a clear picture of the user's traits and how they interact with the application. In its implementation, UI/UX designers often create multiple personas due to the diverse characteristics of users.
The concept of personas was first introduced by a software engineer named Alan Cooper. In 1983, he created a character based on his interviews with other people. Since then, the concept of personas has been developed and adopted by many companies, becoming well-known in the present day.
Why Are User Personas Important?
In general, Personas are created with the purpose of understanding users. By understanding users, we can create an outline and foundation that we will implement in the product, including the interface design and user flow needed by UI/UX designers. Additionally, understanding users allows us to identify their needs, expectations, and problems they face. Therefore, stakeholders can come up with various solutions to help address these issues.
User personas can assist and provide insights to other departments in the workplace. Apart from the design field, for example, in marketing, the insights from personas can determine the types and approaches of advertisements targeted at the public. Moreover, the characteristics of personas can influence the choice of words used in marketing.
Another aspect is that they can be a determinant and a source of information before policies are issued. For instance, when considering releasing a new feature, stakeholders can assess how relevant the new feature is and decide on the minimum viable product (MVP) for product development.
4 Points That Make a Good Persona
- Structured and organized data: Personas can contain a lot of information, and by organizing the data into a structured flow, personas can be easily understood.
- Relevant information: While the characters created through personas are imaginary, the information included should be accurate or closely related to real users, considering the situations and conditions in the field.
- Conduct research before creating personas: This is because those involved in product development cannot put themselves in the user's position. Additionally, there are various types of users who use the application, so personas are expected to encompass and summarize all user characteristics.
- Keep it Simple: Information in personas should be presented in concise and clear sentences. Word choices in personas should be as efficient as possible, explaining the situations easily.
Steps to Create User Persona
As stated in the diagram, the process goes through four main stages, divided based on their percentage of need.
- Research and Study
Initial research will be conducted on a group/identity most likely to use the application. For example, in our application, Paytungan, we focus on the younger generation because our app tends to be used during social gatherings/hangouts. This younger generation constitutes our user base.
- Reaching Potential Users
There are various ways to approach and find potential users, following points can be considered:
— Utilizing connections on social media or direct introductions
— Connecting with potential users through Instagram, Line, and/or Linkedin
— Finding close acquaintances who match the characteristics or are closest to the potential user
— Attending relevant communities or forums
— Participating in relevant events
- Conducting Research
Research can be conducted through two methods: written and oral. Written research can be in the form of surveys, and oral research can include interviews, forums, or discussions. We can conduct research using the following steps:
— Start with the required data and scenarios
— Create surveys for potential users who cannot be interviewed synchronously
— Brainstorm with the internal team
Questions that can be asked may refer to the four different perspectives on the persona approach, namely:
- Goal Directed Persona:
— What difficulties do you encounter when solving your problems using our application?
— Are there similar applications? What sets our application apart from those if any?
- Role Based Persona:
— How is your condition with the role you have?
— Do you feel successful in the role you hold?
— Where do you work?
- Skill Based Persona:
— What skills are required in your role?
— What tools assist you in your role?
— How do you enhance/expand your skills?
- Personal Detail Persona:
— What is your age?
— Where do you reside?
— What is your highest level of education?
The collected data can be analyzed for patterns, which can then be summarized into a persona.
Persona Component
The created persona is recommended to include the following information components:
- User's full name
- User's photo
- User's age
- User's address/residence location
- User's occupation
- Biography, details, and stories about the user's needs
- Goals (user's expectations)
- Gain points, behaviors that facilitate the user
- Pain points, behaviors that hinder the user
Case Study PPL: Example of Paytungan User Persona
In the following section, we will discuss creating personas based on the persona created by our group.
The data and information in our persona are not actually based on research but come from internal team observations within the environment of our team members. Our environment includes several students and interns working in private positions, whom we observed.
From these observations, we identified the background and issues faced by our internal team, which revolved around the need for a tracker or expense-splitting tool. The goal was to enable each member to view payment information for all participants. We created the persona to display essential information such as background, biodata, gain points, and pain points.
We created our persona using dummy data, focusing on biodata, needs, and potential challenges. In the case of Paytungan, for example, we identified the easy cross-bank debt settlement as a want and need for the character Dahlia, given Dahlia's frequent social gatherings with friends. Templates like these can be found on various internet sources, with one example being the requirement exploration canvas.