Do we need to innovate personas?

The Persona Building Blocks framework is a new way of re-imagining personas, and I have created a board to get the community to comment and help in the process, which once complete will be open for people to see and use.

I have been thinking about personas/archetypes/actors for a long time, and having seen many developed and also having developed some myself in the past, there is a need to rethink these.

I also get more and more people asking how they can elevate and enhance their current personas with behavior in mind.

*You can find the board in my Free Frameworks page.

Each building block will eventually have activities that will be needed in order to build the persona.

The Pesona Building Blocks:

👉 Actor (I left it blank because I am thinking of what actually from this perspective is valuable)

👉 Jobs to Be Done (this one could also include the needs and outcomes of the actor)

👉Context (this one can also include environment, but still thinking about the components here)

👉 Behavior (things we can observe and that we are planning to design for)

👉Instinct (when you see a product/service for the first time, you will use fast and automatic thinking, many components are here such as value, affect)

👉Function (this will include components that relate to the function and usability of your product/service)

👉 Rational Thinking (This component uses memory and meaning and perhaps even cultural beliefs)

👉Motivation (This ideally looks at type of motivation and some other motivation dimensions)

👉Decision Making (how decisions are made, still work in progress)

👉Barriers (this could also be described as friction, pain points perhaps - and looks at attention, cognitive load etc)

👉Capabilities (are certain skills and knowledge needed or missing)

👉Competing Ways of Doing Things (what other products/services do they use?)

The way this should work is that you can use the building blocks and components that are needed depending on the project you are working on.

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