Elements of a Persona in Product Management

A persona is a hypothetical personality you create to represent a particular user segment that uses your product. As such, it must comprise of all aspects that you would find in your average user-goals and aspirations, motivations, pain points, preferences about technology and brands, and much more.

Let’s see what details should be included while building a persona.

A typical user persona comprises of the following elements:

1. Profile: This section includes the user’s age, location, education level, annual income and other demographic and geographic details

2. Quote: This is a one-liner that sums up what the user would like the product to do

3. Bio: This section creates a story about what the person does and what he feels would make his life easier

4. Pain points: This bit contains all the problems the user would like the product to solve

5. User goals: This section includes the aspirational as well as essential goals that the user would like to achieve through the product

6. Motivations: This list includes all the factors that would motivate the user to use your product

7. Personality: This section tells you about the psychology of the user and comes in handy while creating the interaction design or adding/deleting features

8. Brands: Knowing the type of brands the user likes would help you understand the thought process of your user better

9. Technology: This section provides information about the devices used by the user, and the software and apps they prefer so that you can make an informed decision about the platform for your product

The example illustrated how all these elements come together to form a persona.

Disclaimer: Please note that the persona of Rakesh is hypothetical, not a real Uber persona.

In the next segment, we will focus on the process of creating a persona.