User Personas are a tool designed to represent different types of users of websites, products, brands, etc., based on similar uses and needs. A user persona displays data in the form of a persona, complete with desires, needs, motivations, and frustrations. Coming up with these personas helps organizations formulate needs-based solutions according to the different profiles and thus reach as broad a target audience as possible.
User Personas have several advantages. For example, they enhance developers’ and designers’ emotional connection to edge users. They also enable teams to work on the same idea cohesively. While team members may have different opinions, styles, and levels of expertise, they can articulate a uniform policy regarding the organization’s primary target audiences.
Here are some guidelines for formulating a User Persona:
Each characteristic of a User Persona must be based on accurate data (research/needs from the field, etc.) based on which the organization has commenced development.
The User Persona must represent actual patterns of the target audience, not functionaries in the organization.
a User Persona must focus on a given situation and how the target audience would use it nowadays, not an assumption regarding the target audience’s use of it in the future.
How do User Personas serve the world of Knowledge Management?
As they benefit extra-organizational target audiences and the world of marketing, so do User Personas assist in decision making and devising a strategy that the organization wishes to implement.
For example, an organization that identifies a group of users that consumes its content mainly via mobile phones due to constantly moving can develop a solution that makes the required knowledge and information more accessible through mobile platforms.
User Personas can represent target audiences in portals, knowledgebases, and other knowledge management solutions. We can thus improve the knowledge’s accessibility, its phrasing and occasionally even improve the content itself.
A User Persona serves as a vital source of knowledge as it is based on studies, observations, and any additional data that led the organization to an improved understanding of the target audience and a subsequent informed decision regarding how to make the knowledge accessible in an easy, user-friendly, and engaging manner.
References:
Product Experts
Xtensio
Wikipedia
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