It’s a well-known statement that “UX without research is not UX” If any design decision is not based on research, it’s not UX. It’s purely the designer’s perception which may be risky for the product.

Persona plays a vital role in the product journey, each and every pointer of persona should be chosen carefully and based on research data. Single hypothesis may be risky for the product. In general, a persona’s content is the user’s name, demographic details, psychographic details, pain-points and goals.

How this persona’s content is formed?

Spending time on doing research for a persona is crucial for a successful product. Persona should not be created in a hurry, it should be a well-researched persona. The most critical and challenging part in this process is user’s availability. Once the user is available, we have the key to explore different dimensions for germinating a successful product.

Hitting the right problem is the key to success in UX

Finding the right problem should be done even before the persona forming. It will help to design a germane persona for our product that will support us to make the right design decisions.

A persona designed in a hurry has no use, it will act as sterile which does not help at all to germinate a successful product

What research should be done before designing a persona?

In the double diamond approach, the first diamond is to define the problem and the second diamond is to seek the solution. Persona should be designed just before the last step of the first diamond i.e. define a problem statement for the persona. Here are the generic research methods before we design persona

1. User Interview
2. Contextual Observation
3. Key Insight – Affinity analysis of insights
4. Insight study – key Insight, what is desired, impediments and Actions to mitigate the impediments – (Download Template for insight study)
5. Action Priority Matrix  (Download Template for Action Priority Matrix)
6. Empathy Mapping and Persona  (Download Template for Empathy Mapping)