UI/UX Design Services and Personas – Mistakes to Avoid

Research done right goes a long way in creating a product that speaks wonders for a business. This goes also for the design. This is particularly when it comes to documenting the persona of the user. It helps the designer in their decision-making process while designing a solution that is at par with the users’ needs.

However, there is a big ‘BUT’ associated with personas. This affects the ROI for the business to a great extent.

Wondering the problem? Well, the answer to this is that despite the designers discussing in detail the relevance of personas, not many use them.

In the lines below, I discuss this area, introducing you first to the basic concept of a user persona. This will help you understand why it is important to place focus on this area, the mistakes that need to be avoided during the process, and so on.

All this will streamline your UX design services, ensuring the end design of the product is such that maximum users remain glued to the product for a considerably long period.

So let’s begin.

Introducing You to UX Personas

UX personas are a fictional depiction of the real data. This might represent the common factors among certain user groups, so to speak.

This is in the form of a document that includes the patterns, the skills, the goals, and other basic traits of a particular user group.

All of this acts as a medium for designers to evaluate the design strategy they need to ideate during providing UX UI design services.

Getting an understanding of this meaning, I am sure you can get a basic idea that the area is important to consider. Its ignorance might prove fatal for the business in the long run in failing to retain the number of users. Simultaneously, it will also not be able to deliver the promise through the product they create.

In the lines below, I explain the other reasons why it is important to give preference to the user persona during UI/UX design for the designer.

Have a look at this image

As you see in the image above, with the support of the user persona, designers can empathize, define, ideate, create a prototype, and test with utmost clarity.

In the lines below, I explain these in detail.

Helps Build Empathy

The foremost task for a designer while designing a product is to know what the user wants, what they think, and most importantly what they need. This supports stepping into their shoes and creating a product that is at par with those needs and is successful in the long run for you.

Gives Direction

As a designer, you need to know the constituents that help seamless product functioning. This is where it is best to focus on the persona. Doing so will provide clarity on the elements that work best for them.

Provides Clarity in Communicating Research Findings

In a professional setting, it is necessary to be on the same page with other team members so that work is easy to perform. This is especially for the team of designers. They need to be on the same page to ensure easy design strategy creation. 

Hence, it is important while embracing UI UX design and development, you understand sooner what goes behind its creation. Next, understand the mistakes to avoid. 

Taking care of these areas will streamline UX development, and ensure the product drives maximum value for the business. This will help you to capture the maximum number of users in a short time.

What Constitutes a Pleasant User Persona?

There are eight major ingredients you need for creating a pleasant user persona –

1. A name to make it easy for you to understand the audience you want to target through the design you create
2. Picture to create a humane effect on the overall user persona. This will help you to design a website or an app in a tone that is in sync with users’ needs
3. Background to make content that is customized in nature to the background of users you wish to target.
4. Skills to interpret their technical proficiency and support you in creating a brand and a product that is as per the users’ skill-sets.
5. Age goes a long way in creating a design that tailors to the specific age group and ensuring the digital marketing efforts get performed seamlessly so that the end product drives maximum results.
6. Education to understand the content that your website/app should include making it more enriching and easy to reach out to a maximum percentage of visitors.
7. Geography to get an idea that your site/app is not having any issues among the people living there and the content there is not causing any issue among them.
8. Platform to understand the operating system users use most while operating an app. This will help you iterate a design strategy that works best for these platforms. 

With all these ingredients in balance, you will be able to create a pleasant user persona. Simultaneously, you will conceive a design strategy that drives your business ahead and maximizes your ROI.

It demands some mistakes to avoid though.

Mistakes to Avoid While Creating User Persona to Streamline UX Development

Involve Designers during Research Phase

Start involving designers during the research phase if you are not doing this yet. This will help you understand the areas that require consideration in the initial phase. This will enable your design to stand out.

This will simultaneously make the data collection and analysis an altogether seamless and transparent process for you.

Conduct Strategic Data Collection

Doing so will help you create a user persona in sync with the design strategy you wish to include while providing UX design services.

Avoid Creating Too Many Personas

Doing so might make it difficult for you to fulfill the user demands through the design you create. Therefore, avoid creating too many user personas during the UX design so that user demands become easy to meet.

Use a mutually-exclusive-collectively-exhaustive approach to create a portfolio of personas and make it easy to meet user needs.

Stop Relying on Demographics Too Much

Though it initially helps, this is something you should not count upon too much. It would be better to give weight age on the desires, goals, etc. This would help iterate a design strategy that makes interaction easy with potential users.

With all these mistakes avoided while creating a user persona, designers will be able to deliver unique UX design services for your product. This will ultimately help your product to stand out successfully. 

Closing Words

A user persona is an important area of focus for designers. It, therefore, demands the utmost use of research. This will ensure the UX design services is easy to provide for designers. It will also help them to create a product design that is in sync with users’ needs and requirements.

Hence while creating a user persona; research thoroughly on the user and what works best for them. This will help you to deliver a seamless user experience through the design you create thereby driving value. This will maximize ROI in the long run for the business and ensure maximum customers and revenues both side-by-side.