Enhance your personas with real attributes
"Bob the Builder" and "Sally the Soccer mom" are thin, flat personas. I like to start my personas with a real person and then genericize them to my persona instead of starting with a generic. Here, from a list by Seth Godin, are some attributes that make your personas more like real people.
- Litigious
- Price shoppers
- Loyal
- Bureaucratic
- Demonstrative
- Followers
- Leaders
- Luxury-focused
- Skittish
- Trusting
- Bottom fishers
- Eager
- Confident
- Easily amused
- Uncomfortable talking about money
- Part of the crowd
- Afraid
- Outliers
- Desperate
- Rich
- Easily distracted
- Secretive
- Joyful
Be cautious not to stereotype; we need to create archetypes. Remember, stereotypes are intended to demean; archetypes are intended to inform.
What are your tips for making personas work in your organization? Add your comment below.
About Steve Johnson
Steve Johnson is a product management process coach, author, speaker, and advisor. His approach is based on the belief that minimal process and simple templates result in a nimble product marketing and management team. Before founding Under10, Steve was a Pragmatic Marketing instructor for over 15 years and personally trained thousands of product managers and hundreds of company senior executive teams. Learn more at www.under10playbook.com
In his spare time, Steve enjoys making music, and has an album available on iTunes. Check out Steve’s music at notExactlySteve.com