Tool
Personas introduction There are many ways to identify the needs of users, such as usability testing, interviewing users, discussions with business stakeholders, and conducting surveys. However one technique that has grown in popularity and acceptance is the use of personas: the development of archetypal users to direct the vision and design of a solution. (Calabria, 2004) Working with personas implies a user-centric approach: We have to put the user first, and build a product that wants to do a great job for the user. As a consequence, the product becomes a means to an end. It exists to serve its users. (Pichler, 2012)
Personas, is a term utilized in design and usability analysis to identify specific customer profiles. Every business has a need! Yet, consumers have needs too. This tool, Personas, is a journey to really understand the customers’ needs in order to answer to services/businesses’ necessities. The great thing about personas is that they invite us to view the product or services from the user’s perspective. This helps us design a product that truly benefits its users and all so the business. Because, with personas, we can shorter the design cycles. Which improve the management process, by the fact that design and marketing efforts can be prioritized based on the personas, as also, disagreements over design decisions can be sorted by referring back to the personas. And at least, designs can be constantly evaluated against the personas, reducing the frequency of large and expensive usability tests. Personas are archetypes built after a preceding exhaustive observation of the potential users. Why should we take full attention to costumers’ needs instead of fully regard our attention to the business’ needs? The answer is Empathy. We should build empathy with our potential customers in order to raise conditions to achieve both business’ and costumers’ goals at the same time. If the service/product does not meet the business’ needs, then, the solution applied was not the most accurate one. Nevertheless, to achieve a stage of empathy we need to understand the costumers first. And to do this, the best way is to use this helpful Design Thinking Tool – Personas.