More Thoughts on Personas
The origin of personas
The first three personas in history were named Chuck, Cynthia, and Rob. Alan Cooper is credited with introducing the persona as a practical interaction design tool (and made famous in a chapter of his 1998 book The Inmates Are Running the Asylum). He writes about the origin of personas over the course of his long career in, well, The origin of personas. By the way, Alan Cooper's use of the three different personas with his consulting client Sagent Technologies in 1995 was so useful and powerful that their product not only succeeded by ultimately defined a new product segment.
Personas aren't always just for one person
Personas are hypothetical archetype users that still serve as a powerful and inspiring tool to design products and services. Personas are widely accepted and used to focus, design, and develop a successful idea. But sometimes the value propositions and experiences we design aren't intended to be enjoyed by a single person at a time. What about the experience of a family spending the day at an amusement park? Or another family in the waiting room at a hospital? In these cases it's useful to create a group persona that captures the persona content for each individual AND the desired shared experience. As UX/UI designer Alejandro Bonmati writes, "Sometimes, we must broaden our vision and think out of the box to consider a bigger and richer picture of our version of the user persona of one." Below is an example of a family persona provided by Mr. Bonmati.
