Personas

Uitgeschreven tekst

1. Name
2. Background: E.g., family background, place of birth, upbringing; education, etc.
3. Living situation: E.g., spouse or partner, children, work, social environment, club memberships, etc.
4. What matters right now: E.g., children leaving the house, a new neighbourhood being built, etc.
5. Motives, aspirations and concerns: E.g. religion, ambitions. wishes. concerns and fears. Try to be specific — how are these reflected in the persona's actions?
6. Likes (hobbies) and dislikes: Try to be specific — if your persona likes to read, what types of books do they prefer? If they are averse to politics, why?
7. Media consumption: Describe a day in the life of the persona (consider relevant means and channels of communication). 
   • If they use a clock radio, what station is it set to?
   • If they belong to a football club, are there ads there?
   • If they work in an office, do they use Google?

Tips

• Use a picture to give the persona a face, and hang it up somewhere. This will regularly remind you of the target audience.
• In small groups, have other colleagues create their own personas at the same time and compare what everyone comes up with.

What’s the value of this?

Working with a persona is a way to make the target audience more real. This technique can be used when researching media consumption or when setting up a website, for example, in order to get an idea of user expectations and search behaviours. It can also be useful to use the persona to go back and explore involvement: What is this person’s relationship with the government? How does this issue concern them? What role do they want or can they have?