Personas are archetypes or fictional characters with goals, values, fears, challenges and desires who best represent the profiles that you want to include in your Community.
Personas help you identify and narrow down the types of individuals who are most important to the community.
Use quantitative and qualitative research. In particular, interviews can help you gather data and create the personas that best represent the Community
Resources:
Template: Persona Canvas
What are Personas?
Personas are archetypes or fictional characters with goals, values, fears, challenges and desires who best represent those collections of people you want to target in your Community to provide them with the content and experiences most appropriate for their particular needs. While Segments are groups of individuals, a Persona helps you visualize one specific individual and look more closely at how that individual thinks, what their needs and aspirations are, and how best your Community can satisfy them.
Why are Personas important?
For larger communities, it would not be practical to interview each and every person in the Community or every potential member in the global pool of potential members - which can be referred to as “target audience”. By creating a fictional character or representative archetype that represents a group or segment of your membership and potential membership helps you simplify the process of understanding your Community’s target audience.
How do you create Personas?
Personas are specific archetypes or fictional characters who represent different segments in your Community. Think of and design your Community’s Personas as real persons. Below is an example of a Persona, whose name is Laura.
Laura, age 39, is a child protection officer at UNICEF. She has a Masters in International Development and an MBA. She speaks French and English fluently. She is very comfortable with information technologies and is used to communicating with colleagues over emails and video conferencing - though she prefers talking rather than writing. She is a single mother with two children. She prefers stability over mobility, and she has worked mainly in headquarters. She has never worked in developing countries. Her professional network is mainly internal to UNICEF. She would like to expand her network by being connected with colleagues who work on child protection outside of her own organization. She also desires to feel closer to where the action happens.
Note that Laura is a fictional character. At the same time, Laura is an archetype for a group of community members with similar characteristics.
When creating Personas, it is good practice to give each Persona a name, an appropriate photograph or avatar, and include key statements about that Persona. This detailed description makes the Personas more tangible, more personal, and it is easier to identify them. Adding as much depth as possible to a Persona allows you to ask yourself "What would Kira think of this?”, and consequently design the Community ensuring that it fits the profiles of the various Personas that are included in it.
Note: It is important that you are aware that your bias may play a role in building these characters, especially if you pay a lot of attention to demographics which can drive you to create stereotypes and not authentic characters. We are all different, which is why it is important to co-create Personas with your members and stakeholders. Demographics only help to visualize the Persona but do not build up the entirety of their story and personality.
Characteristics of Personas
Personas have certain characteristics:
Fictional: They are fictional characters but have a name, a life story, goals, values, needs, desires, preferences, and fears.
Changeable: They change over time; they are not static.
One person: A Persona is one person, but that Persona stands for a segment of your community. (See also Segmentation)
Creating a Persona
To create a Persona, use the Persona Canvas template and:
Use qualitative and quantitative research, but more qualitative.
Use data from your interviews.
Be empathetic.
Be aware of your bias and always co-create; do not create Personas by yourself. It is a group process.
Note: Personas are very much an art as much as a science and this article gives you only a brief outline of what goes into creating Personas. Check out other articles on personas on sites like usability.gov for more in-depth instructions.
Choose a picture for your Persona - it can be from stock images but it should represent who your Persona is, for example, a woman, of color, between the age of 24 and 34.
Give a name to your Persona - possibly choose a name that reflects who your Persona is, including cultural elements that are relevant to the segment you are trying to characterize.
Empathize with your Persona - Once you have created your Persona, think about the problems the Persona faces, and describe them with 1-sentence statements, such as “Olga needs … ” It will seem strange at the beginning, but you will soon get used to talking in terms of “Olga needs timely information on telemedicine resources in sub-Saharan Africa” or “What would Olga think?” or “Will this content resonate with Olga?”
Let your Persona grow - As circumstances change, Personas change too, so revisit your personas periodically to ensure that they are still representative of the segments you are targeting.
Blog » Developing Personas for a Community of Practice
Developing Personas for a Community of Practice
Summary:
Resources:
What are Personas?
Personas are archetypes or fictional characters with goals, values, fears, challenges and desires who best represent those collections of people you want to target in your Community to provide them with the content and experiences most appropriate for their particular needs. While Segments are groups of individuals, a Persona helps you visualize one specific individual and look more closely at how that individual thinks, what their needs and aspirations are, and how best your Community can satisfy them.
Why are Personas important?
For larger communities, it would not be practical to interview each and every person in the Community or every potential member in the global pool of potential members - which can be referred to as “target audience”. By creating a fictional character or representative archetype that represents a group or segment of your membership and potential membership helps you simplify the process of understanding your Community’s target audience.
How do you create Personas?
Personas are specific archetypes or fictional characters who represent different segments in your Community. Think of and design your Community’s Personas as real persons. Below is an example of a Persona, whose name is Laura.
Laura, age 39, is a child protection officer at UNICEF. She has a Masters in International Development and an MBA. She speaks French and English fluently. She is very comfortable with information technologies and is used to communicating with colleagues over emails and video conferencing - though she prefers talking rather than writing. She is a single mother with two children. She prefers stability over mobility, and she has worked mainly in headquarters. She has never worked in developing countries. Her professional network is mainly internal to UNICEF. She would like to expand her network by being connected with colleagues who work on child protection outside of her own organization. She also desires to feel closer to where the action happens.
Note that Laura is a fictional character. At the same time, Laura is an archetype for a group of community members with similar characteristics.
When creating Personas, it is good practice to give each Persona a name, an appropriate photograph or avatar, and include key statements about that Persona. This detailed description makes the Personas more tangible, more personal, and it is easier to identify them. Adding as much depth as possible to a Persona allows you to ask yourself "What would Kira think of this?”, and consequently design the Community ensuring that it fits the profiles of the various Personas that are included in it.
Note: It is important that you are aware that your bias may play a role in building these characters, especially if you pay a lot of attention to demographics which can drive you to create stereotypes and not authentic characters. We are all different, which is why it is important to co-create Personas with your members and stakeholders. Demographics only help to visualize the Persona but do not build up the entirety of their story and personality.
Characteristics of Personas
Personas have certain characteristics:
Fictional: They are fictional characters but have a name, a life story, goals, values, needs, desires, preferences, and fears.
Changeable: They change over time; they are not static.
One person: A Persona is one person, but that Persona stands for a segment of your community. (See also Segmentation)
Creating a Persona
To create a Persona, use the Persona Canvas template and:
Note: Personas are very much an art as much as a science and this article gives you only a brief outline of what goes into creating Personas. Check out other articles on personas on sites like usability.gov for more in-depth instructions.
Give a name to your Persona - possibly choose a name that reflects who your Persona is, including cultural elements that are relevant to the segment you are trying to characterize.
Empathize with your Persona - Once you have created your Persona, think about the problems the Persona faces, and describe them with 1-sentence statements, such as “Olga needs … ” It will seem strange at the beginning, but you will soon get used to talking in terms of “Olga needs timely information on telemedicine resources in sub-Saharan Africa” or “What would Olga think?” or “Will this content resonate with Olga?”
Note: Personas are also useful to inform your Stakeholder Analysis.
This article is part of the WBG Communities of Practice Toolkit licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The toolkit features practical resources to help you develop impactful Communities of Practice. 📖 Learn more about the Toolkit. ▶ Access the Toolkit.