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Back right up. Who are we designing our products for again? No one has all the sure-fire answers to designing a wildly successful product, but there are methods out there that are definitely more likely to help you do it. One of those methods includes knowing who you're designing for in the first place by creating user personas.

The user persona was developed back in the 90s as a way to gain powerful insights into a product's target audience and the user's habits and preferences. It continues to be used today by UX design teams and marketing departments across the world.

User personas are a representation of your app or website's user base segments. They act as a benchmark for design and teams to work with to create the optimal user experience. It is a fictitious profile based on the type of people who would be the main users of your app.

Knowing your users makes it easier to remember who you're designing for, as the users of other products might not be the users of your own. User personas turn "the user" into an actual person you can get to know and conceptualize.

Hanging user persona profiles on the office wall or notice board, uploading them to your UX research tools or sending them as PDF for PP files to your colleagues to refer back to every time they design a new feature helps keep your product on track.

This is because a user persona turns the abstract concept of "the user" into a person with thoughts, feelings and emotions.

This person represents a group of users who share similar characteristics and goals. These goals will dictate the best design patterns for your website or app to provide the best user experience. It will also dictate how best to solve certain design problems.

Even when it comes to simple updates - being on the same page as the user can prevent backlashes against updates, such as the unwanted change Instagram made in 2018 when vastly altered their users' experience by replacing vertical scrolling with horizontal.

Even when it comes to designing enterprise software, user personas can provide invaluable insights for creating smooth user flows, something that until recently, many companies have ignored in favor of price.

Consider the following situation: you're designing a new cooking app and your main idea is to help people compile a list of healthy recipes for during the week. But then it hits you - people generally have varying amounts of time on their hands, money in their pockets, motivation or skills when it comes to cooking. The app should therefore be tailored to its main user base segments.

Your natural inclination might be to create a survey feature when the user downloads and opens the app for the first time. It might ask them questions about their lifestyles, their hobbies, how much they exercise, what their budget is per week, etc.

You can learn more about the role of user personas in any of these awesome UI UX design tutorials.

The survey feature might seem like a great idea at the start, but think about how much more time you would need to design an app that caters to all users, along with the extra time spent in development. For the user, it means the added interaction cost of actually filling in the survey and answering the questions, instead of getting straight into what they downloaded the app for: recipes!

You then realize that the time to do the survey was before the design even started. User onboarding must be quick, otherwise you risk losing them. The worst part is that they might even be your ideal users. You don't want to lose these users by trying to cater to the masses because it's precisely these users that will generate the most revenue for your product.

Therefore, the time to create a user persona is before the design begins, not after. The time to use this user persona is during the design stage, not in the development stage. Sticking to this rule will not just save you time and money, but also ensure your product is a hit with your users. Even your MVP should be tailored to the right user personas.

Instead of trying to develop a detailed cooking app which attempts to tailor itself to every user on the planet, we can go about finding the users that will want to use our app in the first place, and tailor it accordingly. Depending on the amount of research you do, you'll probably find the need for that survey didn't exist in the first place as your main audience only includes a segment of society.

Instead, you could create a user persona for this app who is a blend of the main groups of your potential users which might be:

1. People on a limited weekly budget and schedule

2. People who take an interest in fitness and wellness.

This one user persona will be interested in simple, healthy and cheap ingredients they can prepare quickly but can also turn into interesting dishes that they can bring to work in a tupper. You might discover additional useful information, such as that the app should feature plenty of recipes with quinoa, couscous, brown rice and whole wheat pasta that take no longer than 40 minutes from preparation to finish.

You will have saved the time required for integrating two hour recipes into your cooking app. It will be less bulky to download and will be more concise and intuitive to the types of users that are interested in it.

Netflix is a great example of an organization getting its product right for its users. It avoids the basic, and maybe outdated, business idea - the "lets aim to satisfy everyone" approach. It doesn't contain every movie and series possible, instead it includes films and series (even original) based on research.

Netflix uses Big Data as a means of analyzing its customer database, their patterns of behavior and viewing habits. This doesn't mean that you need to know about Big Data in order to create a UX profile, but it does highlight the importance of basing your users' interests on facts rather than presumptions.

You could compare user personas to novelists' characters profiles; they're not essential, but without character profiles, it's going to be very difficult to maintain a consistent character throughout the story. The character will seem flat and will often go off plot.

Creating user personas will make defining your website or app's product requirements and subsequently designing it much easier. Why? Because it entails doing proper research into your main user base segments. Creating user personas often involves three steps:

1. Gathering data about your users

2. Putting the data together

3. Creating your user persona

Before you begin gathering data about your ideal users, you should first ask yourself three crucial user questions, which Raven Veal over at careerfoundry.com defines as:

1. Who is my ideal user?

2. What are the current behavior patterns of my users/potential users?

3. What are the goals and pains of my users?

Asking these questions will help you plan and shape your user persona research. The third question is the most important, as it will define the reason your product will exist in the first place. You can expand on the third question in the following way:

What do your users want to achieve long term and short term, and why? How important are these goals in their lives? How are they currently trying to achieve them?

Then, what stands in the way of their goals and frustrates them? Have they ever tried to solve these pains before and, if so, how? If they managed to find a solution, did it work and would they do it again, or would they prefer a better solution?

Many wonder about the approach to research they should undertake when researching a user persona. Should the approach be quantitative or qualitative? The answer is that usually the best user personas are created out of both inputs. Why shun one method for another when they can be combined?

Quantitative data will make your user personas more understandable, while qualitative data will make them more believable and will help your team identify with them on a personal level.

For quantitative testing, you'll be trying to gather as much data as possible about your potential user base segment. This involves collecting data such as facts about their day-to-day lives: where they live, the industry they work in and how many times they use certain apps like yours.

If you have a product that already exists and want to improve it, then the chances are that you will already have some quantitative data available to you in the form of transactional data, such as purchase orders, CRM data and site traffic analysis. However, if you're designing a new website or app, then you can use the following methods to acquire quantitative data:

Polls

Closed-ended survey questions

User testing data (based on other products)

Meta data: age, gender, etc.

Acquiring qualitative data requires a slightly different approach. It means observing their behavior patterns, their subjective mental models, their emotions and body language. The best way to gauge these aspects is to try the following:

Interviews (observe personality body language and emotions)

Open-ended questions

Shadow their day-to-day tasks

Observe how they use other products

Direct interviews with your potential users and using surveys with open-ended questions helps reveal more about their thought and behavior patterns.

Shadowing users as they complete their tasks shows how they currently approach their challenges, and whether or not their approach can be improved, i.e. what tools and methods they use. It also shows if there are any differences between what the user does, thinks and says if you compare it to interview data.

Laura Klein, in her book UX for Lean Startups, gives an example of product testers actually accompanying users on a grocery run before making a shopping app. She maintains that observing their behavior is key to understanding their emotions - that what the user wants and what they think they want may differ.

Once you generate enough data, you'll need to create a visual representation of it to make it easier on the eyes. There are many ways to do this, but perhaps among the most helpful are spreadsheets or affinity diagrams.

For survey and user testing results or CRM data, you could display the relevant facts in a Google Sheet.

You could then break the data down further by visually representing it with the use of line graphs or charts. Depending on what exactly it is you need to find out from your user base, or if you're designing to improve an app or website, you might also use columns for pages most visited, time spent on that page, elements interacted with, etc.

Affinity diagrams that use sticky notes are a simple but effective way of taking both quantitative and qualitative data and ordering it into different sections.

If you put the information on different color sticky notes for each section, it helps add further clarity to the visual representation.

Empathy Maps revolve around the target user and are usually broken down into four sections: what they think, feel, say and do.

Using of the data gathered for each user persona, you'll want to separate it under different headings, such as:

Other important elements that should make up your user persona include their influences - what affects his or her opinion (this can be a family member, a blog, certain trends or abstract ideas such as UX design).

The less personas you have, the easier it is to design for each one and the less likely you are to end up with the dreaded product "feature creep". Sometimes you may find that two groups can be fused into one user persona if they share enough similar attributes, but in other cases this may not be possible. Each user persona will then represent your ideal user.

When it comes to designing for more than one user persona, it might be useful to think of a Venn diagram where some features of an app overlap and are shared between personas and others are used only by distinct personas.

The app might be designed to completely satisfy two personas, but have the features set out in a way that each persona would easily and intuitively be able to find the section that's important to them.

Your user persona will need a fictional name and photo. The name should be one that is fairly common (think more along the lines of "John Smith" rather than "Hubert Cumberdale"). The person in the photo should reflect the average age of users in that group, while the clothes they wear should also reflect their occupation and personality. A short bio adds some context to the character by briefly summarizing their background, profession, hobbies, frustrations and goals.

Each persona should obviously be different, easily distinguishable and memorable. Bold color schemes are one way to do this. Think about matching the colors in the image with the general theme of the document.

The bottom line is designers and developers should be able to internalize the persona to the point where it's easy to recall what they represent. Check out Justinmind's very own user persona template below to get a feel for what they should represent!

Note that this user persona has a crucial element throughout and that is consistency. The entire persona can be summed up with the quote in the top right-hand corner: "I want to help my team deliver great user experiences". Everything from the bio, goals, frustrations and even the influences section reflects this quote.

If your user persona is consistent, they will seem much more real and be more memorable. If they are inconsistent, they will feel more like a lie and you're hence more likely to end up with an inconsistent product.

At a glance, and from the colorful persona picture, we can already see that this user is a young innovator who is looking to place more of an emphasis on UX in an attempt to reform old UI design practices at her corporation. She's young, single, full of energy and wishes to take charge and grow the UX team in her company, possibly looking to become a manager at some point. She echoes the type of person we at Justinmind are setting out to help with our prototyping tool.

Normally used in conjunction with lean UX design, the lean persona is a technique advocated by the Agile methodology that we, here in Justinmind, have also adopted. The lean persona can be thought of as a lighter, faster rendition of the typical user persona which aims to provide the basic, most fundamental information about a user base.

Drawing on the principles of the Pareto Effect, lean UX calls for a persona that requires 20% of work that produces 80% of total insights. It relies more on qualitative rather than quantitative data and can be used based on analytics data that you already have at your disposal, reducing the need to invest time and money into empirical research.

There are no straight up rules for creating user personas. You can put a physical persona together using paper and a photo, or you can make one digitally and print it out or share it with your colleagues.

However, if you're not sure where to begin, or the right format your user persona should take (they will be different for each company and purpose), then a great starting point would be one of our user persona templates examples. These templates already have the structure predetermined and are fully editable, or you can leave certain elements in if they already match your current user personas.

Furthermore, if there isn't a user persona template that matches your needs, or you want to get more creative, then you can try one of the following three user persona generators:

Meanwhile, Hubspot does the heavy lifting, by putting your user persona together automatically as you just answer the necessary questions.

The questions you have to answer when generating buyer personas with this tool tend to be more financial-based and business-focused than with the Hubspot user persona generator.

One thing that separates User Forge from the other user persona generators is that, in the same workspace, you can also create user stories and story maps with the personas you generated.

User personas are a fundamental part of ensuring the success of your website or app. It's important to make sure you choose the correct design for your persona, and to ensure that the information it conveys is relevant and beneficial to all teams involved in the development and design process.

If done right, personas can capture your attention and forge a memorable impression in your memory, so that they're with you every step of the process.

User personas are now widely recognized as being an integral part of the user experience. Everyone involved in each stage of the development process should be invested in the personas, from stakeholders and designers to developers - who we'll refer to in this post as "end users".

However, creating user personas can be time-consuming and requires some good old-fashioned rolling up your sleeves and getting your hands dirty with empirical data. Choosing a design that not only complements your hard work but helps you get the most out of it is no trivial task either.

But we are here to help, tag along for the tl;dr, including some quick tips on putting user personas together, and for 50 of the best user persona examples out there.

When it comes to design, apart from some general best practices, there are no rules as to what your user persona should look like - the sky's the limit! The type of persona that best fits your purpose will be determined by what kind of app or website wireframe you're designing, as well as the scope of your product, the userbase the persona template will represent and your company culture.

Keep in mind the effect you want it to have on whoever views it - you'll want it to be memorable. How much detail you choose to include depends on what's relevant, but the general rule of thumb is that less is usually more when talking about user personas.

One great piece of advice from Twistlab Marketing is that a user persona's design should ideally be based around the Pareto Principle, whereby they will represent that 20% of your userbase that will use 80% of your products' features, or that will account for 80% of your revenue.

When deciding what information to include in the persona template, bear in mind that while certain details might be relevant to one project, they could be irrelevant for another. Sometimes, depending on budget and time-restraints, a well-researched user persona is in order, whereas, in other cases, a lean persona template might suffice.

Whatever the case may be, you should always bear in mind that too much detail can suffocate a persona, make them boring and less memorable for the end user. You want something you can refer back to again and again through the design process, even as you put your favorite prototyping tool to good use. Below are some general best practices to keep in mind when choosing your user persona template.

Goals and pains should more-or-less take center stage. These are usually the key factors in coming up with your product design and development solution.

Try to make sure that your user personas don't overdo text - the simpler the better, as they will be easier for your end users to internalize their details and mindsets while the product is in development.

Try and make it as visually appealing as possible - you will have put a lot of work into your persona and you want it to stand out - using an attractive color scheme that's indicative of your persona's characteristics, as well as icons and graphics can help in understanding who they are.

Include psychographics - behaviors, attitudes, opinions, and motivations are what make your personas human.

Use an image of the persona. It can be a photograph, a cartoon or a sketch, but it must represent the person well in terms of age, lifestyle and occupation. Never - and we repeat - never use an image of a celebrity or someone from your company. If you do this, you risk creating a bias view of that persona.

Try to include brands. This secondary information can provide great insights into the user's likes and hobbies, which may even include competitor brands.

Maintain a unified design - it not only makes it easier to compare persona traits, but also makes it easier to recall the main facts about all of them.

Certain demographics can be useful, depending on the scope of your app or website. Where they live and their salary range are usually important factors to consider including.

Now you're ready to explore our selection of 50 great user persona templates and decide on which design best suits you purpose!

First up on the list is our template of a UX design persona. In this user persona template we've provided all the important demographic information on the left-hand side superimposed on a colorful photograph of our persona to give an instant impression of lifestyle and personality.

In our example, motivations are in the center to help the end user work towards a design that helps the persona achieve what they aspire to, while having the goals and frustrations close to hand to build a design that answers their pains.

This persona template from Xtensio is all about grabbing your attention. Its loud yellow and orange color scheme screams for attention.

The photograph in this one is strategically located on the right of the persona template, drawing the eyes across the page, making the observer take in the whole page, before returning to the left-hand side to read the details.

A quote lies just under the photograph, helping the end user associate the persona's mindset and philosophy with her image.

The motivations and preferred channels stand out in a clear and colorful bar chart representation and the brand logos represent the user's browsing habits.

This data analyst user persona template largely represents the young working professional. Over a third of this user persona template is designated to a charismatic photo of a young data analyst, with a quote that sets the tone for the rest of the document.
This template gets stuck-in explaining the most important parts, such as a short bio, along with Leonard's goals and frustrations with text.

In true hierarchical fashion, slightly less immediately important categories are denoted with lively infographics, such as Leanorad's personality, technology used on the job and his motivations, to make them easier to retain and revise at a glance.

Getting creative when it comes to design deliverables, whether it be user personas or mood boards, is only ever a good thing. Especially when that deliverable needs to be instantly memorable for multiple people working in a team.

This post-it user persona takes its inspiration from an office environment with typewriter text and the persona's goals, challenges and objectives adjourning separately marked sections of a whiteboard.

Firstly, we have clear dividers when it comes to different aspects of the user traits, with a great visual hierarchy that makes it all easy to read in a second. Secondly, the use of visual elements like bars and tags make it even easier to grasp who this person is, what they like and what they want.

It's true that this user persona doesn't pack as much information as some of the others on this list, but the end goal is achieved just the same. It conveys a clear idea of who this person is, even if it doesn't include every minute detail.

The design of the user persona template itself feels colorful but professional. It's bright and easy to read, with plenty of visual ways to convey information. It feels like a no-nonsense design, much like the persona herself.

We like the general distribution of information around this template, making it easy to read it. This persona representation focuses on her wants, needs and pain points - all of which are useful to designers.

This template focuses on how the designer relates to her craft and her job. It shows us with progress bars her state of mind, using other visual means to convey why her current job isn't a good fit for her. Since this also relates to her and her technology of choice, we appreciate that the template includes which devices she uses on a day-to-today.

We like that despite the lack of in-depth details, all the information presented is useful to any design team. It sticks to her daily life, her feelings and the things she dislikes.

We like the use of bars, tags and bullet points. This makes the information easy to find specific information quickly, with this user persona template offering a minimalist and modern feel. It's to-the-point and doesn't waste space on information that isn't relevant.

It's true that something like this wouldn't work for most projects out there. Most design projects do need crucial traits like preferences and pain points. With that said, there is a use for user persona templates that take a different route - it's just a matter of finding the opportunity in the right project.

We like the design of this user persona. The information is given to us in small bits, using graphic elements and whitespace to let each section breathe. It's easy to read and feels modern, techy - a perfect fit for an aspiring engineer!

This user persona template answers all key questions you would have about the younger millennial persona and the aesthetics fit perfectly the persona described. This user template is modern and fun, and summarizes the user person with a few keywords that appear in the user photo background.

This example by Maria can be particularly useful for any networking, Marketing strategy, or even home decor or similar projects. A stand out category in this template is 'Channels' which clearly summarizes the end user's ability or approach to how to currently achieve their goals.

This end user example presents Olivia, a team leader in a recruiting company. In this template you have only the most basic demographics, but all the additional information is made available in the 'About me' section. It is pretty obvious that other categories such as personality and pain points are very well researched and information is clearly summarized and well organized in a visually appealing way.

The quote and user picture complete this user persona from Dribble by Lucas Swierad for a successful and memorable end user that can help you and your team improve your project design.

Without a doubt, the user persona plays an important - if not fundamental - role in UX design. Whether it's a consumer app or enterprise software - designing with a user persona in mind is always going to increase its chance of success. The reason is that you're giving the user what they need as opposed to what you think they want.

An added bonus is that user personas are also a great way to get interdisciplinary departments on the same page, as well as obtain client and stakeholder buy-in.

Unless you're designing an app or website for yourself, what's the point in designing anything without first consulting your users?

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Why should you use user personas and how do you create them? Get all the steps to build one, as well as a great example and a list of user persona generators!