Just like any feature or user flow you might prototype, it’s a good idea to draft personas early, acquainting yourself with the people you will design for and what their needs are. These profiles will grow and change with the product cycle, as you better establish what you’re building and how these hypothetical people will or will not use it.  In the beginning, it’s best to start with a few that are as different as possible, to explore the widest variety of use cases.
Starting Simple
Two variables helpful for brainstorming are how often someone uses your product, and how skilled they are with the service your product covers.

‘Skills’ can take many forms, and what skills a user leverages will be unique for each product— if you create financial software, a user may be skilled with managing money, managing numbers, or learning new software. In some cases, the aptitudes involved won’t overlap, and it’s worth exploring them as separate traits within your persona breakdown— e.g.: ‘good with numbers, but bad with computers’.

Depending on the nature of your product, how you define ‘Low Skills’ or ‘High Use’ will be relative.  It’s worthwhile to begin with personas that exhibit the highest and lowest examples of each possibility, and adjust later as appropriate.
Different styles, similar goals
 Skills vs Use graph
In this diagram, Kevin represents a power user— someone who uses your product often, knows what they want to accomplish with it, and wants to find the best way to do so.  Kevin will explore every setting and function of your product, and probably has an opinion on how it compares to its competitors.  Kevin will value customization and expediency.

 Leanne will also use your product frequently, but doesn’t bring the same skillset to the table.  She probably knows what she wants to accomplish, but may have some difficulty in doing so, or be hesitant in exploring the product’s functions.  As she will use the system regularly, she values workflows that are easy to remember.

Talia is not as familiar with your product, but is quick to learn and adapt to how it works.  She is unlikely to commit time to exploring options or settings, even if the first path she finds is not the best.  As she is not a regular user, she may value workflows that are easy to learn, as she may not remember how she did something last time.

Garrett only uses your product occasionally, and is not especially proficient in its function.  He may not have a clear goal, and may rely on the product to help him understand what he wants to do, as well as how he will accomplish it.  Garrett would value accessible guidance and UI feedback.

These four have very different interaction styles, but each benefits from design considerations the others require.  Crafting a clear and memorable workflow with Leanne in mind will also be useful those who use the product infrequently.  Creating a system of responsive UI feedback for Garrett will assist anyone using the product for the first time, as they learn how they can interact with it.
Adding Human Elements
 Picture
The next step is to flesh out your personas with real details— make them relatable and genuine characters, and it will be easier to empathize with their needs.

Find smiling photos and include them in their dossiers.  Give your personas goals outside of your product— Do they live in a city?  Own a home?  Love to cook? Hate their job?

If your product is already out in the market, you may recognize the basic styles in your existing customers.  Consider doing interviews with these folk, as ambassadors for the demographics they represent.  In addition to user feedback, interviews can provide product-specific details for your personas.

 What time of day do they use your product?  Where are they when using it?  How did they first discover it, and why did they come back?  What was the trickiest feature to master, and how would they explain it to someone else?  Do they leverage the skills they apply to your systems in other aspects of life?

Roll these details into your characters where they fit, and experiment with a quick narrative describing their interaction with the product— “Leanne sat down at her workstation late that afternoon, remembering she needed to [use your product] before she went home that day…”

What information does Leanne rely on to get her through the process?  Where’s her mental focus?  Where does she get stuck?  How does she get through?


Asking these questions will help to determine which answers you will need to design into your product.  Isolating which moments define a user’s experience will help lay the framework for evaluations you may do down the line.