Analytical Design

Personas are good for:

1. Helping the project team get into the target audience’s mindset - creating empathy.
2. Communicate why and how decisions where made with people outside the project team.

Drawbacks:

1. A persona is an amalgamation of traits from a larger group that get funneled into one entity. And by giving the persona a name and a picture it is hard not to think of the persona as an individual instead of a group.
2. Personas do not create passion for the project. Having passion for what you’re doing and putting all of your energy into it is more important than having certain artifacts for a project.

Interesting Thoughts:

“The proper way to design is not to target an individual type of customer. You want 100 million customers.” - Don Norman

In other words, don’t target a demographic type, rather an activity.

You don’t necessarily need personas to create a great design. It really depends on who you are working with/for and whether or not you have passion for the project.

Reference:

1. Fear and Loathing in Las Personas - adaptivepath.com
2. Personas and the Advantage of Designing for Yourself - bokardo.com
3. That Computer Is So You - BusinessWeek.com