Personas (or customer archetypes) are essentially a design tool to create empathy with a group of real users.
As a UX professional, one of the most frequently asked questions by our clients is that how many personas are sufficient to effectively evaluate and design the user experience. The short answer is: It depends. There isn’t really a magic number abrand or project should follow, but it is generally recognized that 3-8 personas are sufficient in most cases.
Many people, including design professionals, are often confused about the differences between customer segmentations and personas. While a brand can offer a wide variety of products and services, with a large line-up of LOBs (Line-of-business), and a complex customer segmentation strategy, it is rare that a same large number of personas are required for any given project. This is because customer segmentation and persona are distinctly different tools for different purposes.
Customer segmentation is a marketing tool to identify different groups of customers (or potential customers) within a market so that it is possible to target particular products, services or marketing messages. There are many ways to slice and dice customer segments depending on the marketing needs, such as age, income or life stages. Customer segmentation itself does not provide insights but a way to differentiate and group customers.
Persona (or customer archetype) on the other hand, is essentially a design tool to create empathy with a group of real users. Personas are fictional characters (but based upon robust research with real people) designed to represent a group of people with similar characters, values, and behaviours. The purpose of personas is to mix demographic information with archetypal behaviors in a believable and true to data harmony. Personas are most useful when they are paired with scenarios to provide contexts and lead to insights thus guide design decisions.
Customer segments and personas are not mutually exclusive however they are totally different types of tools for different purposes and contexts of use. In some cases, personas could be mapped to segmentations to represent key customer segments, but in other cases, personas could be based on factors that are totally separate from segmentations. For example, when we segment insurance customers we may segment them by life stageswhile looking at a digital decision flow design we will develop personas focused on their readiness to make a decision and their use of digital as opposed to life stages.
So how can we best determine how many personas are sufficient for a project? The rule of thumb is that 'less is more'.
Designers and strategists need to keep in mind personas are an essential tool to guide goal/ behaviour based UX design process. If two personas are similar in their goals and behaviours, only one is needed. Too many personas would result in potential wasted effort and loss of focus in what really matters. (For example, if astay-at-home mom and a career mom follow the same patterns with the same goals in mind and using the same digital touch points when researching for baby diapers, then there is one too many.)
It is ok to start broad, listing out all possible user groups with a matrix of their goals, mindsets, and behaviours. While it is equally important to prioritise and eliminate redundancies when you find striking similarities between user groups. Remember personas are meant to help you make design decisions. If a persona does not add more value to the mix, you may have to grant a graceful ‘persona-cide’ in your process.
To learn more about personas, here’s a good read: http://www.cooper.com/journal/2008/5/the_origin_of_personas
FAQs
In past columns, I've talked about creating personas and evaluating them. Today, I'll explore how many personas are enough. When clients ask us how many personas they should have, we typically tell them a handful — two to seven — is enough.
How many user personas are too many? ›
While it's important to cover a range of users, an excess of personas can lead to design paralysis. The optimal number varies, but a handful of well-thought-out personas usually suffice. According to UX expert Jared Spool, three to five personas are often sufficient to cover the majority of a product's user base.
How many personas are enough? ›
Depending on your business, you could have as few as one or two personas, or as many as 10 or 20. It is generally recognized that 3-8 personas are sufficient in most cases. We've never encountered the need for more than seven personas or fewer than two for each business segment or product line, if they're diverse.
What is the ideal number of user personas? ›
I believe that the size of your persona pack should be around the average family size. And that's around 3 to 5 give or take. This number will suffice business needs in most cases. Of course, your case can be very different and you may end up with an absolutely different number of personas.
Can you have too many personas? ›
Designers and strategists need to keep in mind personas are an essential tool to guide goal/ behaviour based UX design process. If two personas are similar in their goals and behaviours, only one is needed. Too many personas would result in potential wasted effort and loss of focus in what really matters.
What is the ideal number of personas in design thinking? ›
Most often, you would want to create more than one persona for each product or service, but you should always choose just one persona as your primary focus.
How many personas does the average person have? ›
So, both extremes are typically excluded as problematic. Typically, people create less than 10 personas (almost all research papers we've reviewed create less than 10 personas).
What is one disadvantage of having too many personas? ›
Creating too many buyer personas will inevitably segment your target audience to the point where creating content for each individual persona is simply impossible (unless you have the resource, of course) and dilutes your focus.
When can having too many Persona be problematic? ›
Expert-Verified Answer
Having too many personae can be problematic when you use them to deceive, allow others to dictate your persona, or change your persona according to your comfort level.
What are the 4 personas? ›
Competitive, Spontaneous, Humanistic, and Methodical are the four types of online purchasing personas.
An effective UX persona can be a big help in design.
But they aren't the only tool to get the job done; they aren't a mandatory step in the process. They're just a deliverable – an output of user research. And, provided you've done your user research, you can share your findings however you please.
What is the sample size for personas? ›
How Qualitative Personas Are Made. Start by interviewing 5–30 users (as a rolling sample of 5 users per group, until you uncover only a few new insights with each new interview). These interviews can be either fully separate sessions or tagged onto a usability test or field study.
Why do personas fail? ›
One of the primary reasons for buyer persona failure is incomplete or inadequate research. Without a solid understanding of your target audience, it's challenging to create accurate and effective personas. Strategy: To overcome this, invest in comprehensive research.
What are the dangers of personas? ›
The other danger of the persona is an excessive identification with the persona. This indicates that our individuality is nothing but pure fiction, individuality is repressed, representing maximum adaptation to society and minimum adaptation to one's individuality, inhibiting psychological development.
What are common mistakes in creating personas? ›
5 common mistakes companies make when developing buyer personas
- Having too many (or not enough) personas. ...
- Creating personas that aren't based on real data. ...
- Making assumptions based on age/generational stereotypes. ...
- Ignoring the problems your customers are facing. ...
- Forgetting to update your personas.
The Protagonist, however, can have up to 12 total Persona cards in his hand at any one time once you have reached a high enough level.
How many personas are in 5? ›
There are 225 Persona including party member persona's and DLC persona's. 207 not including DLC, 209 not including party members, and 191 not including DLC or party member Persona's.
