Why do you need Personas to develop a Product or App?

When you develop a product or app, surely, you exactly know, who your target market is and also why should they use this product.

Meanwhile, give a thought on a couple of reasons why they may not use your product? This is not a pleasant question, I know. Trust me, questions like this will help you improve your product.

OK, let’s move on, coming back to ‘target market’, who is your target market?

If you are a travel agent or developing a travel app, you will probably roll your eyes and say, “everybody who travels, is my target market”.

Everybody who travels is a ‘generic term’. Give it a thought. Everybody will be – Teens, couples, solo travellers, families (where parents are in early thirties, parents in their late sixties, and families who falls in between), Business executives, home makers, elderly couple, etc.

Wow, that pretty much covers everybody. So a general app is all that you need, right?

You are probably right if you are not ambitious to provide individual attention to each one of your customer.

Just think about it. What if you create an app that exactly understands your customer and gives them individual attention and a comfortable experience.

A travel app that takes good care of busy business executive and also gives a very comfortable experience to elderly people who are planning their holiday.

Who doesn’t want individual attention? 🙂

Yes, Persona is the solution, a solution to build an app that caters to each user and gives them individual attention.

How do you derive a Persona?

Firstly, list out all types of users who fits into the potential market. Example – Teens, elderly couples, homemaker, etc

Derive demographic for each of this user type. Based on all the data collected, create a fake person. This fake person you create is ‘Persona’.

These fake people, or personas are sitting there right in front of you, designer and developer while building the product. Personas are good reference to understand what user would expect from the product/application.