What is a Persona?

Personas are highly detailed fictional characters, representative of the majority of users and of other stakeholders who may not directly use the end product. Personas are created to identify the needs of the target user base. Creating specific Personas can help the team better understand users and their requirements and goals. Based on a Persona, the Product Owner can more effectively prioritize features to create the Prioritized Product Backlog.

Creating a Persona involves assigning a fictional name and preferably a picture, like a stock image, to the character. The Persona will include highly specific attributes such as age, gender, education, environment, interests and goals. A quote illustrating the Persona’s requirements can be included as well.

Example of persona is as followsJohn is a 40 year old resident of Chicago. He is pursuing a passion for traveling after having a successful career as a Software Engineer. He likes to have options of choosing travel related services such as Rail travel, Air travel, road travel, travel insurance and accommodation. He likes simple websites. The Websites should provide a consolidated view of the end-to-end expenses.