Using Metaphors to Create Better Personas

Personas are easy to do, but hard to do well. Many researchers fall short of capturing the right details, analyzing the data in a timely manner, or establishing the persona as a guiding archetype for a project.

Fear not! You can still create solid personas—even if analyzing data from open-ended interviews with large samples of people seems intimidating.

Discover why you should use metaphors

• Demonstrate how metaphors make your personas more authentic and emotional
• Identify the importance of using archetypes versus stereotypes

Interpret data efficiently

• Conduct exercises for interpreting data that are both fun and effective
• Uncover versatile techniques that can replace weeks of tedious data analysis

Create personas so they become memorable to your team

• Consider sketching persona analysis (You don’t need to be an artist!)
• Differentiate trivial information from substantive persona research

Analyze real-world examples of using metaphors for personas

• Detail the step-by-step process of designing metaphors
• Prepare for what to do when you hit roadblocks

Cyd is an accomplished UX researcher whose persona work—and use of metaphors in the field—has been talked about at SXSWi and (soon) in UX Mag. She’s also a sociolinguist and poet, and her client roster includes companies like Wikipedia, Sony, and Volkswagen.