A user persona is a fictional character that represents a real group of product stakeholders, most often a market segment of end users or customers. A persona is generally based on user research and incorporates the needs, goals, and observed behavior patterns of the stakeholders represented by that persona. User personas can help a product owner communicate more effectively with their scrum team and the team’s stakeholders.

Here’s how to create a persona to represent a group of users, customers, or other stakeholders of your team’s product. If you are not currently working on a team, try creating a persona for one group of stakeholders for a product that you would like to work on.

Our example product is a tropical destination resort. The resort is located on a balmy tropical island in the Caribbean Sea.

Stakeholder Group (Market Segment) Demographic Description

Capture key traits or characteristics typical to members of the stakeholder group that you want to represent with a user persona. This might include an age range, income level, where the people live, stage of life and/or career, special interests, and anything else that is relevant and representative of this group of people.

Example:
We want to create a user persona for the college student market segment for our tropical resort. These people are typically in their early twenties. Most of them have modest budgets for vacationing. They are most likely to take a tropical vacation during school breaks, such as spring break. Their interests often include dancing, drinking, and socializing.

Name

Give your persona an alliterative name descriptive of their role. The name should include a description of the market segment or stakeholder group that the persona represents. The name should also include a name that starts with the same letter, such as Alana The Athlete or Fred The Foodie.

Example:
Our example persona’s name is Connie The College Student

Personalized Demographic Description

Take the demographic information that you captured above, and reword it so that it describes your persona as if they are a real person.

Example:
Connie The College Student is in her early twenties. She has to manage her limited budget. Her opportunities for vacation come during school breaks, such as spring break.

Needs, Goals, And Motivations

What are the needs, goals, and motivations that lead this market segment to your product? Try to avoid the temptation to describe features of your product. Remember that personas represent people.

Example:
Connie wants to dance, drink, socialize, unwind, and let go of the stresses associated with being a college student. She wants to get away from the structured environment of her university and focus on pure fun. She wants to feel adventurous and safe, all the while staying within her modest vacation budget.

Choose An Image

Selecting an image to represent your persona can help them feel more real. The image can be a photo or drawing of what you imagine your persona would look like.

Putting It All Together

Here’s what our example persona looks like when we put all the pieces together:

Connie The College Student

Connie The College Student is in her early twenties. She has to manage her limited budget. Her opportunities for vacation come during school breaks, such as spring break.

Connie wants to dance, drink, socialize, unwind, and let go of the stresses associated with being a college student. She wants to get away from the structured environment of her university and focus on pure fun. She wants to feel adventurous and safe, all the while staying within her modest vacation budget.

Cheers,

Chris Sims