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A Template for Design Personas:

Article in International Journal of Sociotechnology and Knowledge Development · January 2015

DOI: 10.4018/ijskd.2015010104

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A Template for Design Personas - Analysis of 47 persona
descriptions from Danish industries and organizations
First Author Name
Affiliation
Address
e-mail address
Optional phone number
ABSTRACT
The persona method is gaining widespread use and
support. Many researchers have reported from single
cases and from novel domains of how they have used the
method. However the way companies and design groups
describe personas has not been the focus of attention.
This paper analyses 47 descriptions from 13 companies
and compare these to an analysis of recommendations
from 11 templates from literature. Furthermore 28
interviews with Danish practitioners with experience in
using personas are analyzed for content on persona
descriptions. The study finds that a Danish persona style
has developed that is different from the
recommendations; two differences are the lack of
marketing and business related information and the
absence of goals as differentiator for personas. The
inspiration and knowledge on personas originates from
co-workers and seminars and not much from literature.
This indicates that the community of practice influences
the persona style.
Author Keywords
Personas; Scenarios; Design; Application; Practice-study
ACM Classification Keywords
H5.m. Information interfaces and presentation:
Miscellaneous.
INTRODUCTION
The persona method is widely used and numerous papers
describe and evaluate the usage. Despite this there is no
unambiguous definition of a persona that exceeds that of
“a persona is a fictitious user”. In literature on personas
there are differences in the approach to data, to use, and
to content. There are suggestions to use new forms of data
to elicit user groups e.g. (McGinn & Kotamraju, 2008,
Sinha, 2003), experiments using the method on new user
groups, e.g. (Antle, 2006, Atzeni et.al 2011) and a few
have evaluated the use of the method e.g. (Dotan et. Al,
2009, Junior & Filgueiras, 2005, Markensten, & Artman,
2004, Rönkkö et.al., 2004).
Despite the popularity of the method it is very difficult to
decide how to best write a persona description. As De
Voil, 2010 puts it: “There is no rigorous or even rational
basis for the selection of details to attribute to the
persona.” The result is that project members can describe
personas as images of themselves (ibid). To close the gap
of knowledge this paper looks at best practice from 5
public organizations, 5 private organizations, and 3
private companies. It builds upon material from an earlier
study on the use of personas in Danish companies
(Nielsen & Hansen, 2014). After the study we collected
1
Second Author Name
Affiliation
Address
e-mail address
Optional phone number
more persona descriptions and analysed the descriptions
separately. The analysis of the 47 persona descriptions is
compared to recommendations and templates from
literature and published templates from design- and
marketing agencies. This combination of data collection
(best practice, analysis, and comparison) is made to
understand the similarities and differences in the textual
descriptions, their structures, and attitudes towards what
it is a persona should describe. The paper contributes with
an understanding of how the industry composes persona
descriptions, the textual and visual content of the
descriptions, and how the practical application relates to
recommendations in literature.
APPLICATION OF THE PERSONA METHOD
The personas method was introduced in the late 1990
within the IT sector and used in IT systems development.
Since then the method has become known worldwide and
has spread to other areas such as marketing and product
development. A persona is a fictitious user constructed
from different categories of field data. Data may originate
from a combination of questionnaires, user interviews,
observations, probes, or internal discussions. The term
“persona” covers a wide range of understandings of how
to portray a (fictional) user, from capturing a project
team’s pre-understandings of the users (Normann, 2006),
to descriptions of specific user types based on large sets
of data, analyzed to reveal the differences among the
present and future users (Pruitt & Adlin, 2006). Personas
are used for different activities ranging from a designer
who uses the persona to imagine the end-user’s design
preferences and needs to marketing investigating how to
address users.
In Denmark the method took off in the public sector
around 2005, later it became recognized in IT systems
development within the private sector. This paper is part
of two larger studies on the knowledge of and application
of personas in Denmark: a quantitative survey (Billestrup
 Category Content References
Background Demographics Anvari & Tran, 2013, Erindon, 2012, Goodwin, 2009, Jones & Marsden,
information 2006, Negru & Buraga, 2012, Mulder, & Yaar, 2006, Nielsen, 2012,
www.usability.gov, Pichler, 2012, Pruitt & Adlin, 2006

Personality and Anvari & Tran, Goodmann et.al., 2012, Jones & Marsden, 2006, Negru
psychographics & Buraga, 2012, Mulder, & Yaar, 2006, Nielsen, 2012, Pichler, 2012,
Pruitt & Adlin, 2006
Urbanicity, lifestyle, Erindon, 2012, Goodmann et.al., 2012, Jones & Marsden, 2006, Mulder,
hobbies and interests & Yaar, 2006, Nielsen, 2012, www.usability.gov, Pichler, 2012
Design Work related issues, use Anvari & Tran, Caddick & Cable, 2011, Erindon, 2012, Goodman et.al.,
related of technology, and 2012, Goodwin, 2009, Negru & Buraga, 2012, Mulder, & Yaar, 2006,
information relation to domain. Nielsen, 2012, www.usability.gov, Pruitt & Adlin, 2006
Daily life- or work Caddick & Cable, 2011, Goodmann et.al., 2012, Goodwin, 2009, Negru
context & Buraga, 2012, Nielsen, 2012, www.usability.gov
Product related issues (Anvari & Tran, Erindon, 2012, Goodman et.al., 2012, Jones & Marsden,
such as tasks and 2006, Negru & Buraga, 2012, Nielsen, 2012, www.usability.gov,
behaviors. Pichler, 2012, Pruitt & Adlin, 2006
Product goals Caddick & Cable, 2011, Goodwin, 2009, Jones & Marsden, 2006, Negru
& Buraga, 2012, Nielsen, 2012, www.usability.gov, Pruitt & Adlin, 2006
Scenarios Mulder, & Yaar, 2006, Pruitt & Adlin, 2006
A day in the life Jones & Marsden, 2006, Negru & Buraga, 2012
Business and Competitors Goodmann et.al., 2012
marketing
Market size, segment Jones & Marsden, 2006, Mulder, & Yaar, 2006, www.usability.gov,
related
Pruitt & Adlin, 2006
information
Brand relationship Mulder, & Yaar, 2006
Business objectives Goodmann et.al., 2012, Mulder, & Yaar, 2006, Pichler, 2012
Graphics Color-coding to indicate Goodwin, 2009
segment
Miscellaneous Reference to sources Jones & Marsden, 2006, Negru & Buraga, 2012, Pruitt & Adlin, 2006
Disabilities Pichler, 2012
International Goodmann et.al., 2012, Jones & Marsden, 2006, Mulder, & Yaar, 2006
considerations, Ethnicity

Table 1. Overview of the content in different templates found in literature

et.al., 2014) and a qualitative study (Nielsen & Hansen,
2014). The questionnaire survey on knowledge of
personas in software development companies shows that
the application of the method is poor and provides several
reasons for this. Among the respondents 55% had never
heard about personas. Among those who had heard about
the personas method, the following obstacles were
identified: lack of knowledge of the technique, lack of
resources (time and funding), poor descriptions when
applied, and finally the personas were not integrated in
the development process.
Interviews among practitioners who have experience in
using the method, asking to their perceptions of benefits
and challenges when using the method, shows, that
among these the method is well integrated into existing
practices and used for design. The personas are most
often created in the beginning of the design process and
most companies are satisfied, or very satisfied with the
method. Furthermore, in several companies the current
successful implementation of the method rests upon
several failed attempts.
Both the quantitative and the qualitative research point to
lack of awareness of the benefits of the method and lack
of understanding of how personas can be integrated into
the development process - the latter both in terms of how
to use the method and in how to develop the personas
descriptions. As Floyd et.al. (2008) point out personas are
used and developed in several ways and there seems not
to be a universal way of developing and working with
personas. The paper (Floyd et.al., 2008) differentiates
between seven kinds of personas (Cooperian Initial,
Cooperian Final Personas, Pruitt-Grudin Personas, Sinha,
Ad Hoc, User Archetype, Marketing) that have different
characteristics. The designation of the first four types

2
refers to authors of persona literature and advocacy. The
last three refer to differences in use. The persona types
can be differentiated according to how much detail they
have (all relevant, particular and salient, or particular and
expected) and according to how much data and the sets of
data they are built upon (survey, demographic, or non-
empirical).
Anvari et.al. (2013) have looked at other scientific areas
for inspiration on what to include in the persona
description. Based on own experiences and inclusion of
perspectives from cognitive psychology and learning they
propose a holistic persona description that consists of five
areas: Factual dimension such as demographics and
interests, Personality dimension based on a psychological
model of personalities, Intelligence dimension based on
learning styles, Knowledge dimension with reference to
knowledge of the domain, and finally the Cognitive
Process Dimension that refers to learning processes e.g.
between experts and novices.
COMPOSING THE PERSONA DESCRIPTION
Similar to the work of Floyd et. Al. (2008) we dig into the
templates retrieved from literature. Contrary to their work
that draws upon persona descriptions and reports of
personas usage, we look at suggested personas templates.
For this we focus on books, papers, and websites that
have defined the content of a persona description and/or
initiated a persona template. From a literature study we
retrieved 12 templates from various sources, both on-line
and from books (Anvari & Tran, 20, Goodwin, 2009,
Caddick & Cable, 2011, Erindon, 2012, Goodmann et.al.,
2012, Jones & Marsden, 2006, Negru & Buraga, 2012,
Mulder, & Yaar, 2006, Nielsen, 2012,
www.usability.gov, Pichler, 2012, Pruitt & Adlin, 2006).
An analysis of the templates reveals several differences in
the recommendations of content. It is noticeably that
some of the descriptions have influenced each other,
terms such as “psychographics” and “ethnicity” appears
in more templates. The influence from Alan Cooper
(Cooper, et.al, 2007, Cooper, 1999) is also noticeable as,
in line with Cooper’s Goal Directed Design, 7 of the 12
templates include goals as a key differentiator. Other
templates have distinctive terms such as “we must, we
must not”.
The level of detail in the templates varies. Some
templates have elaborated descriptions of the content to
include, while others are more superficial.
An analysis of the templates shows that the information
can be divided into five categories: Background
information, Design related information, Business and
marketing related information, and Graphics, and
Miscellaneous (see Table 1).
In the recommendations there are an implicit
understanding of the domain the single template covers. It
is an implied understanding that the product to be
designed is a work-related IT-system, therefore job-role
and description of the organization has to be part of the
description. If the IT-system is perceived as a product or a
service, descriptions of the persona’s daily-life is to be
included. Finally some templates include a business
3
perspective on the product. These templates include
information on business objectives and sender
perspectives, such as the above-mentioned “we must” and
“we must not”.
The relation to empirical sources varies. The most
specific templates suggest including references to the data
that the persona descriptions are built upon.
A STUDY OF PERSONA DESCRIPTIONS
For a deeper understanding of the practice within private
and public companies when designing and deciding
content for persona descriptions, we report from a
qualitative study among Danish companies who have
experience in creating and using personas. The study took
place from October 2012 to January 2013 (Nielsen &
Hansen, 2014).
To find and recruit companies that have experience in
using personas online channels such as LinkedIn groups
were used. Additionally, also advertisements in two
expert forums, newsletters and word of mouth were used.
Finally, to broaden the perspective and get companies
outside our existing network, Google searches were
performed using keywords such as: personas and
usability, and the companies found were contacted. We
succeeded in approaching 13 large, medium-sized, and
small companies from both the public and the private
sector. In total 11 companies gave access to persona
descriptions and one company provided descriptions that
only had photos and no textual information.
We are aware of that the self-selected recruiting method
creates a bias as it makes it more likely that participants
with a positive experience with personas will participate.
Despite this we managed to find one company with a
negative experience and here we interviewed two
employees and analysed a personas-cast consisting of 3
personas.
INTERVIEWS
All in all we interviewed 28 participants, some as single
interviews, of these we performed several interview
sessions within the same company. Some as interviews
had 2-3 participants present from the same company. The
decision on how to conduct the interviews depended on
the company size as small companies often have only one
employee working with personas while large corporations
have many working in different positions, departments,
and contexts.
All participants had experience with personas and most of
them had been working within project development and
management. Most of the participants were domain
experts with no formal design education.
In the following we will designate a set of personas - a
persona cast.
The interviews were conducted as qualitative and semi-
structured research interviews. As part of the research the
companies gave access to 47 persona descriptions. Most
were full casts, some were partial casts with a couple of
persona descriptions missing, and one cast was very
partial and did not include any text. All in all we were
presented with 13 casts. In the following we will mainly
focus on the 12 more or less full casts, while the one
missing most detail is left out of most analysis.
METHOD OF ANALYSIS
The goal of the study is to understand the content and
layout of persona descriptions. For these two processes
have been applied the descriptions have been examined
for content, consistency, and layout. Following that we
returned to the interviews and collected content on
persona descriptions.
The analysis of the persona descriptions was performed in
three steps. In the first step all descriptions were printed
and placed on a large table in order to categorize the
descriptions and observe both visual and written details.
They were compared across company casts and the
individual casts were analysed. Across casts the persona
descriptions were studied for methods of communication,
visual expression, and content. Within casts we looked
for coherence. Furthermore quotes from the interviews
were identified to broaden the understanding of the
descriptions.
In the second step we looked at the individual
descriptions of the 12 casts in relation to the categories
from the retrieved persona templates. The content in
relation to the five template categories were noted and
during the analysis new categories were formed. The
content were finally segmented into: Number of personas
in a cast, Differentiators, Background information,
Domain and media related information, Design related
information, Business and marketing related information,
Graphics, and finally Miscellaneous.
Most of the persona descriptions are confidential, but we
have permission to use a few as illustrations.
Finally in the last step we returned to the interviews and
identified recurring issues on persona creation. While
listening to the recorded interviews, different sound bites
were identified through the method of condensation
(Kvale, 1997). The statements from the interviews
provided us with explanations for different decisions
during the persona creation process. In the following they
are added to the description analysis and the comparison
to the templates from literature.
ANALYSIS OF PERSONA DESCRIPTIONS
In general there is a high degree of similarities between
the descriptions. Across the different casts the
descriptions have a length of approximately one page,
there is a photo depicting the persona, and the text is
divided into small sections with headings. Many
descriptions have similar elements, but placed under
different subheadings according to the perspective
applied e.g. search strategy, can be placed under different
section headings, such as Media Use, User Needs, or
Product Relation.
The format makes it easy to get an overview of how many
personas there are in a cast and of their differences. The
differences are further supported by color-coding and for
some descriptions by different taglines or quotes that
characterize the persona.
Number of personas in a cast
4
The number of personas in a cast varies between 3-12.
Most have between 3-6, but two casts have respectively
10 and 12 personas. Specifically for the cast with 12
personas is that it describes 6 segments, furthermore
some of the segments include descriptions of more
personas.
Number of 3 4 5 6 10
personas in a +
cast
Found in casts 1 3 2 3 2
Table 2. Number of personas in casts
Relation to data
Most companies have performed extensive user research
and analysis before they write up the persona
descriptions. The typical process is to gather data, analyse
the data, and finally use this foundation to write the
persona descriptions. The data is gathered either by the
design team or by consultants. All interviewed have been
part of the process of analysis and the writing of
descriptions.
There are a couple of examples of companies with no
formal data collection, but even so the personas are as
lengthy and the descriptions appears just as thorough as
those with data.
In the following we will describe a process and an
example of a final persona created without data. One of
the participating companies created a three-step process
that included knowledge of the trade from both employers
and companies they cooperate with. As a beginning they
asked their own employees and their collaborative
partners to create sketches of personas. This process
resulted in 50 sketches written in a template developed in
advance. From this they took a strategic decision of
which work-roles they wanted to focus on. The last
process was to assemble the sketches into 10 persona
descriptions and to rewrite these. Obviously this process
was thorough and reflective, but at no point did it include
any data and it had no reflection on the validity of the
persona descriptions. Looking at the persona descriptions
they appear professional and well designed and do not
reflect the lack of data.
Consistency
There is a correlation between how long the personas are
to exist and how fleshed out the descriptions are. For
companies that create new personas for each project the
descriptions tend to be sketchier and have less
consistency between the different personas in a cast.
While the personas that are to last longer and are applied
to several projects, have more detail and consistency in
the content within the cast.
There is furthermore a tendency that companies that are
new to the method create persona casts that are less
consistent. This is especially observed in the companies
where the persona method is not a core method, but a
minor and more coincidental practice. Furthermore it is
observed that in the less consistent persona casts, with
differences in subsections and layout as well as
incoherence in concepts, companies have not had external
consultants to help with the descriptions
Persona naming
All persona descriptions have a name and some have an
additional tagline that characterizes the persona. This can
be a role, quote, motto, demographic characteristic,
marketing characteristics, personality trait or a design
characteristic e.g. ‘The digital self-servers’, or for
personas in the medical area a specific ill-ness e.g.
´Bipolar. A few persona casts had several taglines. Both
name and taglines enables the reader to quickly
understand the differences between the personas in a cast.
The written information
All persona descriptions have text divided into
subsections. The subsection has a specific order often
presenting personality features and characteristics first
followed by subsections that include relevant information
for the specific project. We saw descriptions that had a
clear division between personal information and
information relevant to specific design decisions such as
use- or work related issues. We also saw descriptions that
integrated the personal and design related information.
Similarly to what Floyd et.al. (2008) designate ‘twin
personas’ we saw examples of persona descriptions that
include more than one type. Twin personas resemble each
other and are used in the same design context, but have
slight differences.
Roles or attitudes
Differentiators Number of casts
Roles 4
Domain 4 Table 4. Variations in the types of personal information
Attitudes 3
Goals 1 information on demographics and interests while fewer
Table 3. Variations in what determine the differences
between personas in a cast
The three most decisive differentiators for how many
personas there are in a cast and what makes them
different, are: roles, differences in attitudes specific to the
domain, and differences in attitudes towards the product.
There is a tendency towards that companies which apply
roles as differentiator have more personas.
Using goals as differentiator does not seem to be as
widespread in the Danish companies as in the retrieved
templates and only one of the casts include goals. An
explanation can be found in the interviews, when asked
about where the inspiration to apply personas came from,
most interviewed mentioned being introduced to the
method from personal networks or at conferences. In the
quote below it is described how a partner in a public
funded user-driven innovation project introduced the
company to the method.
C8: ”Somebody said: ”You have to figure out who your
target group is” and then we formulated a project around
that. We were part of this [user-driven innovation] project
5
and they introduced it to us. It turned out that there were
many who had worked with personas.”
Only three interviewed mentioned specific literature and
all of these referred to Alan Cooper. Interestingly, none of
these companies apply goals as differentiator, as specified
in Cooper’s Goal-Directed Method while the only
company that looks for goals, does not mention Cooper.
Person, couple, or role
It seems to be quite open for interpretation whether a
persona represents a single person, a couple, or a role.
Most of the descriptions are of a single person, but some
casts have descriptions of several individuals and also
portrayals of couples.
In one cast the single persona description includes several
roles within the same illustrations. The roles have
different names and descriptions, but the same photo
illustrates all. Another cast portray the same persona at
different ages.
Background: Demographics, personality, and
personal information
Background information Number of casts
Demographic 10
Personality 5
Domain related 3
Work role 2
Social relations 1
Culture 1
included in the persona description
As shown in table 4, most of the descriptions include
have information on personality.
Compared to the analyzed templates this distribution is
similar, but a noteworthy difference is the lack of
information on income, urbanicity, and lifestyle. An
explanation is that in the Danish companies it is domain
experts, user experience designers, or consultants that
create the personas and the marketing departments are
most often not involved. This group of creators does not
seem to value the more marketing-oriented information
including information on brand relationship and market
segments that is part of many of the retrieved templates.
Content: Design related information
The design related information is quite similar to the
information in the templates. It consists of information on
the persona’s relation to the domain and product,
information on media use, and information on specific
needs such as search strategy, goals and knowledge
needs. Only one cast has descriptions of goals included in
the product related information.
Domain and media related Number of casts
information
 Experience with the product 7 •
General media use incl. social 6
media
Media use in relation to the 5 clothes in the same shades of color.
product
Domain related information 1 line with how the persona method is perceived where
Table 5. Variations in the types of product related
information included in the persona description
While most of the templates include some form of
scenario either as a day-in-the life story or use scenarios,
this is not the case in the Danish persona descriptions,
and there seems to be a strict distinction between
personas and scenarios. An exception is a persona-cast
where descriptions of present time scenarios were
intertwined with the personas. As a consequence of
intertwining the present day use and problems with the
current system into the persona description, the company
found it difficult to use the persona descriptions for
design of future solutions and as a result cancelled using
the method.
Design related information Number of casts
Search strategy 3
Knowledge needs 2 The companies have developed different ways of
Goals 1 of keywords, headlines and quotes give a quick
Scenario 1 understanding of the kernel of the persona description and
Table 6. Variations in the types of design related
information included in the persona description
Content: Business and marketing related information.
While several templates include business and marketing
related information, none of the Danish descriptions had
any such information. Even though it is stated in several
interviews that personas are used as a strategic tool and in
marketing, the descriptions do not reflect this, and there
seem to be a common understanding of personas as a
design method rather than of a decision and strategic tool
for marketing purposes.
Graphics
In the Danish description graphic elements are used as a
means to easily recognize the individual persona in a cast.
One of the templates mentions the use of color-coding as
a way to recognize the persona as belonging to a segment.
None of the Danish descriptions has divided the cast into
different segments instead the focus is to quickly
remember and individualize the persona descriptions.
All, but one, of the persona descriptions we have had
access to have worked with visual strategies to get the
descriptions to foster empathy. The strategies differ in the
following two ways
• The illustrations are true to real life situations
and leave an impression of the persona being an
actual person. This includes mood-boards that
show pictures from the persona’s everyday life.
6
The descriptions are created to look artificial, to
the persona as not being a real person e.g. one
description is illustrated by the same persona at
different ages, the different representations wear
The different strategies for visual representation are in
some companies understand personas as patterns in data
that represents an average user, other view personas as a
representation of a user group that can cater for extreme
design situations thus embracing the average, finally it
can be perceived as a management tool that can cover the
variety in user behavior.
Graphics Number of casts
Photo 10
Blurred picture 1
No picture 1
Consistent lay-out 8
Color-coding 3
Table 7. Variations in the graphic elements
Elements that foster identification
fostering identification and support the memory. The use
aids the memory of all the information in the design
process. Other examples of elements that enhance
identification and sustain the memory are post-cards send
from personas and puppets that represents a specific
persona. In the interviews we identified six companies
that had developed extra material that supported the
persona descriptions, but we have only had access to
extra material from two casts.
Elements Number of casts
Keywords 2
Head-lines 2
Quotes 2
Post cards, puppets etc. 2
Table 8. Overview of the different elements that supports
memory and enhances identification
Miscellaneous
None of the Danish casts had any references to data
sources. Moreover, apart from those that especially
design for users with disabilities, none included
descriptions of disabilities as is recommended in several
templates. In the casts from the public organizations
ethnicity is treated as inclusion of immigrants most often
from non-western countries, and there are one or two
personas depicting this group.
Companies that work on international markets experience
it as especially challenging to create persona descriptions.
The companies follow two strategies or a mix hereof.
They either develop persona descriptions that represent
users from different countries or descriptions that are
general and aimed at covering a wide variety of countries.
Furthermore some companies divide the persona
descriptions into an overall part and a part that singles out
national differences.
In cases where the company has an international market
and/or has departments in several countries it is given
considerable consideration whether to include photos in
the descriptions. In two cases the companies had decided
not to use specific photos, but instead had a cast without
photos or used blurred photos. The rationale behind these
choices is that a photo can give away cultural cues that
might hinder the understanding of or the identification
with the persona.
C1: “It was a very deliberate decision not to include
photos as they [the personas] had to be used in both an
English, Belgian, Polish, and German context. People are
different and there was an apprehension to lock the
understanding to an Eastern European or Western
European context. This is why there are no photos.”
Even though a couple of templates in literature mention
international considerations (…), how the international
aspect is applied to the persona descriptions is not
developed and described in detail in the literature.
COMMUNICATING THE PERSONAS
The companies, where the persona method is well
integrated, have given thought to promoting the persona
descriptions in the work space, e.g. hanging persona
posters at central places in the company. Several projects
had developed extra material such as post cards and life-
size personas in order to enable empathy and to sustain
the use of the persona method. We also observed how
some companies create props from the persona
descriptions such as dolls and masks. These were used to
play out design-scenarios.
C2: "We have heads on sticks somewhere. When we do
these role-plays, - it might sounds very silly - but we can
put the sticks up in front of us with the profile written on
the back. Then we can perform these role-plays. It sounds
a little silly, but it works”
CONCLUSIONS
An analysis of design persona descriptions retrieved from
a number of companies has to our knowledge never been
performed before. The boundaries of the study are limited
to the national borders of Denmark with a large variety in
the businesses and organizations that have granted access
to the descriptions.
The study has found that a Danish persona style has
developed over time and the ways the personas are
designed and described are quite similar.
The style is different from the recommendations in the
analyzed templates from literature. Two differences are
the lack of marketing and business related information
and the absence of goals as differentiator for the personas.
7
While most literature on personas descriptions relate to
Alan Cooper’s method where goals are a central part of
the persona description, this seems not to be the case in
Denmark. Instead there is a common understanding of
what a persona description should contain and a standard
for length, visual, and textual layout has been developed.
From the interviews we found that knowledge of the
method is handed down through personal connections
with peers and the interviewed referred to their
inspiration and knowledge on personas as originating
more from co-workers and seminars than from literature.
Learning from practice becomes important for many, as
more than half of the interviewed initiating personas
projects and working with personas are domain experts
and not user experience designers. The domain experts do
not have the formal training in personas and design
methods that user experience designers can be expected
to have.
Based on the analysis we find that a best practice has
evolved in the community. The best practice reflects if
the persona is to be used by more projects or are created
only for a single project. The longer lifetime the more
fleshed out and coherent descriptions.
The best practice puts a lot of effort into presenting the
personas so it becomes easy to get an overview of the
differences among the personas in a cast.
The best practice rejects marketing oriented information.
Furthermore the persona description is separated from the
scenarios.
The relation to data is pragmatic and varies from the non-
existing to large-scale research.
Finally the illustrations are given thorough considerations
that stems from both the different understandings of the
concept of personas and an understanding of how the
illustration can color the perception.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This research is supported by InfinIT- Danish Network
for Innovative Utilization of IT.
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