Personas and Empathy Maps

LunchLoop's "users" include a developer who works from home two days a week, a sales manager with client lunches, and a cook feeding thirty offices from her kitchen. Designing for "users" means designing for nobody in particular. Personas and empathy maps keep specific, research-backed people in the room when decisions are made.

The rule

A persona is a pattern from research, not a character you invented.

A persona is a short profile that stands for a group of people with similar goals and behaviours, built from what research actually found. What belongs on it:

• Goals: what they are trying to get done.
• Behaviours and context: how and when they act.
• Frustrations: where things break for them today.
• A representative quote from real research.

What usually does not belong: age, hobbies, a stock photo, a favourite brand, unless the detail would change a design decision.

LunchLoop's first persona, from the interviews and survey:

Hybrid Harsh. In the office two or three days a week, decided week by week by his team. Hears about lunch meetings on the day itself. Wants lunch handled without planning. Frustrated by paying for tiffins he cannot eat. "My calendar changes by ten; my lunch can't."

An empathy map is a quick canvas with four areas, Says, Thinks, Does, Feels, filled in for one persona or one research participant. Its best moments are the gaps: Harsh says "I plan my week on Sunday", but he does change his office days twice a week. Design for what people do.

Keep few personas, usually two to four, and each one must be referenced in real decisions. A persona nobody quotes is wall decoration.

The shortcut

For each detail on a persona, ask: "Would this change what we design?" If not, cut it.

Drills

Answer fast — trust the rule.

Remember

• A persona is a pattern from research, not a character you invented.
• Shortcut: keep a detail only if it would change what you design.
• Trap: trusting what people say over what they do; the empathy map's gaps show the difference.