Hey Steve,

Thanks for sending the column.

Interesting and easy read that (to me) is very good at conveying a clear message, which is to put a HUGE warning sign next to the use of personas.

Personas somehow remind me of CRM some time ago. Really good concept at the beginning taken over by profit hungry IT and marketing companies. Instead of working on the concept, they focused on tools to push more promotion to people; thus leading to an early death of the word CRM, and the need to come up with new terms like “Customer Experience”.

I would not necessary kill “personas” just yet though. because there is a need to record the profiles that come up from ethnographic research. Changing the name of the tool will not solve (but just shift) the problem. If personas are based on actual research and are used internally to feed in the design process (and not showed off on posters), then they can be pretty good, no? (am I being too naive here?)

Another example to support that: In Hong Kong many companies claim to have a user-centered development process and do usability, but when you ask if they involve users… well, almost none do… still usability is a good term and hopefully with more education, more and more users will be involved in the future.

Anyway, thanks for the article! Looking forward to future columns!

their blogto see how. A really good article on Personas… It is well written, entertaining and to the point; i.e. Personas are misused in most cases and a tool meant to “help companies actually get closer to their REAL customers

I think there are many examples of personas done well and having a good impact on the organization. But there are many horrifying counter-examples, and I’d like to step back and look at the affordances of the tool - if it’s that easy to misuse, is it really the best tool to be using?

To Be Or Not To Be: Personas in Design Research…

Amongst others I’ve also come across personas as a tool to ‘uncover’ possible dimensions of a set of archetypical attributes of (possible) customers.

Therefore with great interest I’m watching the current conversation between blog/web veteran…

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lame. Really, there’s no good excuse. Recently, in the design world there’s been a discussion regarding a research technique, the persona, and how they’re used and misused. For background read these:Persona Non Grata, Personas 99% Bad? and Personas are NOT a Document. Couldn’t come at a better time for me. As I sit here fretting about research, along comes Dave Robertson with all the answers. His article, “

[…] If you’d like to read our white paper about personas, you can find out how on our site at www.portigal.com/blog/ask… […]

[…] Steve Portigal published a thought-provoking article about the failings of personas in ACM’s Interactions magazine earlier this month. His fundamental argument is that personas are more dangerous than useful because they “are misused to maintain a safe distance from the people we design for… manifesting contempt over understanding, and creating the façade of user centered-ness…”. If you want to read it, ask Steve to send you a copy – it’s a stimulating read. […]

[…] http://www.portigal.com/blog/ask-for-our-latest-article-persona-non-grata/ […]

a user story rundown, then perhaps the design and development team will relate more readily with these deliverables. Both have their own merits but by having the two together you have a holistic profile of your user group. BothSteve Portigaland Peter Merholz’s sides of the persona argument have valid points. Of course personas can be bad, but a really good one is worth so much in terms of getting the product right. User stories are cheap and very effective. Having keyword research and

[…] In my recent column Persona Non Grata I point to some of the cultural problems inside organizations that personas can create, or mask. And what happens when your personas become your marketing? […]

[…] There’s been a lot of interesting discussion recently around personas. Part of what’s really being talked about is how to tell an effective story. As in, one party has information they want to impart to another in a way that is impactful, memorable, makes a good working tool, and can be internalized and passed along to others. […]

[…] Persona. A persona is an artificial identity derived from demographic analysis, survey results, focus group findings, and secret shopper interviews. It’s a convenient shorthand in the toolbox carried by user experience specialists - people like product designers, process architects and interior designers. […]