Finding Information for Personas

Effective personas must accurately depict a number of specific users of your product or website. To achieve that goal, personas must be supported by research. Chapter 6 presents techniques for researching and modeling your potential users to provide a firm foundation for your personas. Don’t look for one method to be the answer, however; it’s best to find as much data as you can and mix it with a blend of observational and interview data—this can also include utilizing online surveys and analyzing behaviors in social networks.

It’s a common theme to creating personas: Get real data, but make the personas into real people on the pages. To learn how one company accomplishes this, see the sidebar “Case Study: Messagefirst Personas.”