8 Best Articles on Personas
The most useful articles on personas from around the web—beginners to advanced—curated by thought leaders and our community. We focus on timeless pieces and update the list whenever we discover new, must-read articles or videos—make sure to bookmark and revisit this page.
Top 5 Personas Articles
At a glance: these are the articles that have been most read, shared, and saved on personas by Refind users.
Short Articles
Short on time? Check out these useful short articles on personas—all under 10 minutes.
You Don’t Need a Buyer Persona. You Need Multiple Audience Personas.
I have a bone to pick with buyer personas, but it’s only because I like them (in contrast to Rand who doesn’t like them; yes, we can disagree). My
Personas vs. Archetypes
Archetypes and personas used for UX work contain similar insights, are based on similar kinds of data, and differ mainly in presentation. Personas are presented as a single human character, whereas…
Just-Right Personas: How to Choose the Scope of Your Personas
Narrow- and broad-scope personas achieve different goals. Success depends upon knowing the tradeoffs and structuring your personas’ scope based on what you are trying to achieve.
The MAAD approach to personas: what UX can learn from marketing
A practical guide for creating better UX personas, borrowing from marketing and media best practices, based on the four criteria of measurable, actionable, addressable and differentiated.
Why Personas Fail
Personas are useful tools for UX work, so why do they often fail? Find out what pitfalls cause personas to fail, and how to avoid and overcome them.
Long Articles
These are some of the most-read long-form articles on personas.
Fixing User Personas
User personas can be controversial and problematic. Is there a way to turn them into a useful resource?
Personas vs. Jobs-to-Be-Done
Jobs-to-be-done focus on user problems and needs, while well-executed personas include the same information and also add behavioral and attitudinal details.
Personas – Why and How You Should Use Them
Personas are fictional characters, which you create based upon your research in order to represent the different user types that might use your service, product, site, or brand in a similar way. Creating personas will help you to understand your users’ needs, experiences, behaviours and goals. Creating personas can help you step out of yourself. It can help you to recognise that different people have different needs and expectations, and it can also help you to identify with the user you’re desi
Publications
We monitor hundreds of publications, blogs, newsletters, and news sources in Personas, including:
Nielsen Norman Group
User advocates offering evidence-based user experience (UX) research, training, consulting. Jakob Nielsen, Don Norman, Tog, and colleagues.
UX Collective
Curated stories on user experience, usability, and product design. By @fabriciot and @caioab.
Interaction Design Foundation (IxDF)
The Interaction Design Foundation (IxDF) is the world’s largest online design school. We were founded in 2002 and have over 139,000 students.
UX Planet
http://uxplanet.org official twitter account
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We monitor 10k+ content sources on hundreds of topics—publications, blogs, news sites, newsletters, Substack, Medium, Twitter, etc.
Which sources does Refind monitor on personas?
We monitor hundreds of sources on personas, including Nielsen Norman Group, UX Collective, Interaction Design Foundation (IxDF), UX Planet, and many more.
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