Persona
See also: buyer persona
A persona is a specific, believable representation of a target customer, built from research rather than assumption. In naming, personas are what candidates are tested against, replacing abstract judgement with a reaction from a particular point of view.
In practice
The useful persona is singular and specific enough to disagree with you. A demographic bracket (women, 25 to 40, urban) produces no reaction to a name. A person with a job, a context and a set of expectations does.
Alan Cooper brought personas into design practice and introduced the technique to a wide audience with The Inmates Are Running the Asylum in 1999. The definition in use since is a fictional but realistic description of a typical user, built from interviews, field studies and similar research instead of from the team's guesses.
In naming, the persona's job is to answer one question: does this name make sense to this person at the moment they meet it? It fails when it is built from assumptions, because then it hands the team's own taste back with a name attached. A working persona has a job to be done, a place where the name first appears (a search result, a shelf, a procurement email) and something they dislike. The last one is what makes it possible for a persona to reject a candidate.
Where this sits in the process
The studio treats this as part of a single run rather than a separate service: the category is read, the creative direction is chosen from what the research found, candidates are generated in volume and then cut against criteria that were written down first. See how the studio works for what that produces, or the naming module for the stages themselves.
Related concepts
- Persona validation: Testing names against built personas instead of team taste: what the method surfaces that a meeting does not.
- Buying center: B2B purchases are made by groups, not people.
- Positioning: The strategic statement a name has to carry: what positioning is, and why naming without it produces decoration.
Frequently asked questions
What is a persona?
A persona is a fictional but realistic description of a typical or target customer, built from research such as interviews and field studies. In naming it gives the team a specific person to test a name against, instead of an abstract audience.
What is the difference between a persona and a target group?
A target group is a statistical bracket, such as women aged 25 to 40 in cities. A persona is one believable person with a job, a context and expectations. A bracket produces no reaction to a name, a person does.
How many personas does a naming project need?
Few. One primary persona usually does more work than six thin ones. In B2B add the other roles in the buying decision, which is what a buying center describes, but each role should still be a specific person.
What is a buyer persona?
A buyer persona is a persona focused on the person who chooses or pays for the product. It records what that person needs, fears and objects to, and where they first meet the brand. It matters most where the buyer is not the user.
Sources
- [1]Alan Cooper (software designer)— Wikipedia
- [2]What is a persona— Uxcel