Creating personas is something that most businesses do today in order to get a better understanding of their consumer base. This helps them to define their marketing and web design efforts so that they are providing the best possible user experience for these individuals. With that in mind, below, we will take a look at how you can use lean UX to achieve more efficient personas.

 

What does this even mean? What is a persona?

 

You are may be thinking ‘what on earth does this mean?’ The answer is startlingly simple, but couched in ‘academic speak’ it can seem a concept that is alien.

In the very early days of web design, a persona was an imaginary typical customer or a user archetype. This imaginary person – a persona – would have a set of perceived behaviors, goals, navigation routines, interaction, and a certain like and dislike for some visual designs. 

By attempting to pre-empt what a type of customer would like, the design or interaction via the website could be pre-determined. It is a way of looking at what a customer could do, whilst standing in someone else’s shoes and seeing with their eyes. This is also imperative when you create a strategy for your social media accounts, develop a content plan, and so on.

Some researchers suggest that personas are a way of putting a human face on the data and information. It is beneficial in creating a common understanding of the final user. One way to make sure the persona we generate is accurate and effective is by using ‘Lean UX’. 

 

Using lean UX to create the best personas 

 

Lean UX is simply one of many methods used by businesses to achieve the same end goal; an incredible user experience. This approach is less focused on deliverables and more concerned with the experience under design. The main objective of Lean UX is to get feedback as early as possible so that rapid decisions can be made.

By using this approach, personas will be created based on assumptions, i.e. proto-personas, which have been put together during a brainstorming session with the team. They will then be checked against real data. This is in contrast to UCD, where personas are created solely based on previous research. Therefore, a lot of people prefer lean UX because they believe that it leaves them with much more accurate and effective personas for their business. 

So there you have it: an insight into creating personas for your business and how you can use lean UX to create personas that are much more efficient and effective. If you have never used personas before, this may seem a little bit overwhelming, but there is no need to panic. Just think about it as creating profiles for the sort of customers you want to target at your business. This helps you to put yourself in your customers’ shoes and get a much better understanding of what they need and what they are looking for.