How to Create a Practical UX Persona

An important part of UX design is understanding who you are designing for, aka the user. In order to completely and accurately understand the user, you must conduct necessary research such as user interviews and surveys. Once you have gathered enough information of your target user, you must synthesize that information and then use it to build an example of the user you are targeting, otherwise known at the User Persona.

When creating this Persona, start with the problems and ask yourself the following questions: What kind of problems do these people face? What makes their lives difficult? What keeps them up at night? Whats their biggest challenge? One you have answers to those questions, you can ask yourself what the users need, what their goals are, what outcomes they are looking for, what would make their lives easier, and what makes them satisfied.

The next part of creating a user persona is to understand who the user is. Decide on their age, location, gender, and profession. What are the typical traits if this user? For example, are they risk takers or risk avoiders, and are they tech savvy or tech dummy? Additionally, where do they go to collect information about similar products or related to their products? Next, ask yourself when, where, and how do they use this product. When and how will they discover the product? What device will they use to access the product? What kind of software and tools are they familiar with?

You must next understand what fears or worries they might have. Ask yourself what fears do users have? What are they worried about? what could prevent them from using the product/service? Finally, add an image, role, and a quick description or your user pesona.