UX personas - marketing personas
Most things have probably already been said on the topic, so only a few reminders are needed.
On one side, the behavioural approach championed by the “UX paradigm”. You cannot infer behaviour from the traces it leaves alone (analytics, for example). You need to observe it, question it, contextualise it. This approach is by its nature very time-consuming, so the samples built are modest in size. We’re talking about 50 to 100 users in the best cases, but qualified ones.
From this data, we identify a set of elements that influence behaviour towards the product and that segment the target user base. By combining the criteria and going through the values they can take, we surface stereotypes. Caricatures that will be very easy to think with during the design phase. These will be UX personas, and this is what we call the qualitative approach.
Heavy databases
Conversely, in the era of analytics and big data, databases are bursting with information about users, gathered at every touchpoint with the service. For example, the website, mobile app, loyalty cards and even sometimes the physical places where people interact with the service. Highly technical fields (around Data Science and machine learning) have emerged with the aim of giving meaning to this data and surfacing indicators that support decision-making.
This is how typical customer profiles can be built, using segmentation algorithms (clustering) for example, which establish groupings through statistical splits. More classically, this user data is grouped into marketing segments. These can sometimes also be refined into marketing personas, describing buying behaviours.
“How do we map this with our CRM?”
We’ve been asked this question on 80% of persona projects over the last 18 months. Behind the words, a legitimate pragmatism (“how can we capitalise on this work to prioritise our commercial decisions?”), but also sometimes the scent of old battles: qualitative studies vs quantitative studies. The qualitative side is criticised on representativeness, the quantitative side on the meaning of data that hasn’t been contextualised.
Cooper, who popularised the idea of personas in the digital world and, by extension, today in UX, in his book “The Inmates are Running the Asylum” (Cooper, 2004), makes this observation:
The marketers describe to the designers the unfilled need or desire they hope to satisfy. The interaction designers then study potential users to determine their goals and to create a cast of characters. Even though the programmer works only with code, the design personas inform that code. Even though the marketer works with channels, target markets, media, and resellers, the design personas inform them. At last, the programmer and the marketer have a common ground.
In effect, interaction designers act as a go-between for marketing professionals. […] What’s more, the marketer can now see his input is being addressed and can be confident that he won’t be handed raw technology and instructed to find a buyer for it.
Cooper, A. (2004). The inmates are running the asylum: [Why high-tech products drive us crazy and how to restore the sanity] (Vol. 2). Sams Indianapolis, IN.
Personas, a caricature?
So marketing expresses a wish to address a market segment. The technical team will ultimately be in charge of implementing it. The UX designer acts as an intermediary. They translate the market opportunity into a feature that meets a use case, or even a need, and spell it out so that it can be built.
By nature, personas are stereotypes. They serve design, because they let project teams easily put themselves in the shoes of users’ actual needs and behaviours in their absence. Their caricatural side makes the characteristics easy to remember and supports creativity. On the other hand, it becomes unrealistic to expect a direct and immediate link with the CRM, which contains real individuals with their full range of singularities.
In short
When the stakes are high, it then appears that the good acceptance and use of the personas built can come down to helping the design and marketing teams put themselves in the shoes of the other team’s targets/personas. So work on mapping certain marketing segments to personas, and vice versa, can let both sides anticipate the directions that will be taken. Note that children can also be included in your personas. If you’d like to know more about this type of user, we’d recommend our article on the topic.
To finish, as is often the case, an organisation sharing a common reference frame is a sine qua non condition for team synergy. Personas, a subject that fuels many debates, are just one illustration.
References
*Personas: “Personas are user archetypes created from real data gathered during the exploration phase. They are used in the design process to represent and describe the goals, needs and characteristics of the different user groups. They are useful for generating ideas and design decisions.” Lallemand, C., & Gronier, G. (2015). Méthodes de design UX: 30 méthodes fondamentales pour concevoir et évaluer les systèmes interactifs. Editions Eyrolles.
