Understanding User Personas
After research is conducted on specific users, a persona or profile is created. This imitates a real customer and uses data from the person’s attitudes, user behaviors, pain points, needs and wants in regards to a specific product. When a user persona is created in an app, its’s designed to work with a specific group of people not a generic group.
A persona will illustrate the behaviors and goals of users. Market segments will examine demographic patterns and look at locations, age, salary, sex, and other factors. During the development of an app, personas can provide added benefits.
Promoting User Focused Outcomes
An app at times, can change into the desires sof the developer and not focus on the end user. To eliminate this problem, the development process has to center on a goal which has the end-user in mind. The developers must work from the perspective of the end user.
The app has to resonate with the end user so personas are used through the entire development process. If the user persona is reinforced during the development process, the team stays focused on their main goal of creating an app for the user. If this is not done, then the end product may not be what the end user is going to want.
Consensus During Development is Established
When you have raw data, it’s often hard to interpret this. When you have a persona, this communicates trends and encapsulates the research so it can be visualized and understood. When you have a development team you often have personnel with varying degrees of skill which can cause opinions in what should be done. When you work with a user persona, this makes it easier for the team to avoid miscommunication and confusion when engaged in the development process. The concepts and ideas and communicated with a persona so the entire team is on the same wavelength and that they understand what their target audience actually is.
Decisions are Validated
Once you have an app idea you may not have something that the end user actually needs or even wants. You need to figure out who the app will target, but you also need to know what the end user you’re trying to reach actually needs. You need validation so the end product delivers what the end user needs or you’re wasting a lot of valuable time. When a decision is made during the development process this has to focus on the needs of the end-user. If the development process starts to stray away from focusing on the end user, the app stands a good chance of failing.
During the development process, user personas are important for everyone as they increase efficiency and quality of the work. Product quality is increased when using a persona because it addresses the pain points of the end user and fixes problems with their current user experience. When you understand and can meet the needs of specific groups of users, the app stands a greater chance of being a success. You’ll get a higher download rate and engagement with the user will be maintained.
