 Welcome to Personas. Today, we'll focus on what Personas are, how they're developed, and why as a UX designer, you want to use them. First, let's look into a dark world, where projects are created without Personas. In this dark place, designs can change based on one person's requests. Egotistical designers can decide they know exactly what the user wants. The user is an ever-changing target. The team can't decide who they're developing the project for, and chaos breaks out until the final version is given to the client, bearing no resemblance to the original idea and with little to no use. Enter Personas. In user experience design, Personas are fictional characters created to represent real segments of your audience. They're used to model the behaviors of your users. Effective Personas represent a major user group for your website or application. Give a clear picture of the user's expectations and how they're likely to use the site, and describe real people with backgrounds, goals, and values. How do I create a Persona and leave the world of dark design behind? The first step in creating Personas is to research your users. Let's say that we're creating a mobile-based music app that can instantly send songs to friends. We start by interviewing and observing people using similarly designed applications. We ask them questions about who they are and why they're interested in using the new app. We take note of any behaviors, assumptions, or expectations influencing their view. Next, we look for patterns in their answers. We identify specific, relevant, and universal themes and characteristics. These help us group the users into categories and create a model Persona for each grouping. Each Persona usually includes the basics, such as gender, age, and occupation. Finally, we make each Persona realistic. We add a photo and other identifying information, including a background, likes, dislikes, hobbies, motivations, and expectations to make this representation real. We also add a quote, summing up what matters most to the Persona as it relates to our new application. Now we've created a variety of Personas we can use during our UX design development. Finally, let's examine why Personas are so important. We already know that without Personas, UX designers are left in a dark and dangerous world. So let's see how using Personas brings light and balance to the development process. Personas should be used throughout the creative process because they can help determine the goals for our project based on users' wants and needs. These goals are what any UX designer should focus on during development. Answer Questions If a designer is unsure about something or has additional questions, they can go back to the Personas to stay focused on the user's needs and wants. Build Empathy Designers gain a perspective similar to the Personas. By giving the user a name, face, and background including hopes and dreams, the designer makes creative decisions based on the Personas worldview. Define a Focus Personas help the project team define who the website or application is created for. It's easier for UX designers to relate to and remember a tangible example instead of an abstract user. Designers don't always know what's best. Without Personas, designers can get lost in the details, conflict with team members, and suffer from an overall lack of focus. They can get lost in the dark. Developing Personas sheds light on any project and allows a UX designer to truly understand and internalize the user, resulting in a project designed around what the user actually wants and needs. Today we've examined what a Persona is, how it's developed, and why it's used. You have completed Personas.