What is a Test Persona?

[highlight dark=”no”]The test persona[/highlight] is a fictional character, which means potential users of a particular web system.

Why do we need it?

Analyzing the personas’ problems and needs and thinking of what they primarily need, web marketing specialists could resolve all scripts and issues which are not visible and clear to web developers.

Where is it used?

Using persona templates is extremely useful in the fields where clients will directly interfere with the particular system.

Who should use it?

Such personas are commonly used by usability specialists but it can be profitable for other fields too if they think about clients while developing and testing their products.

Is it really important?

When developers have the task to check various functional flows or potential problems, it’s quite efficient to use the group of personas whose behavior will tell how to properly and usefully create web components.

How to develop and successfully deploy a test persona?

First, you should think who exactly will be your end-user, why they will use your product, what problems may appear while they’re working with your product. Just “compress” these data visually to quickly return to it while working with it.

How to properly describe a test persona?

The product’s customer may be described in various ways. You should find the optimal balance between the simple and complex personas.

• Personal information. Everything that gives a possibility to test the user – for example, their client id, or the number of driving license.
• Use cases. How does a user behave in the system? What parts of the app must work?
• Difficulties. Will it be difficult for users with bad eyesight to interfere with the app? Could the product be used by people with bad hearing? Actual issues must not be very serious and potentially influence the common life of a customer (but you should also take this into account);
• Technical experience. Must your users possess special knowledge about computers or mobile devices to use your system absolutely comfortably and efficiently? Do current users possess such knowledge? Never think that a user will never do this. Actually, it always happens that a user performs in such a way that you couldn’t foresee.
• Name and personality. If on your project, everyone is familiar with the peculiarities of your persona, then its hard sides could be easily discussed. If we imagine that, for example, not you but fictional “John” interferes with the developed functionality, then the developed product gets more and more sides of visual perception.

Good examples of test personas

Today there are numerous free templates for developing test personas. There are various resources and products but some of them are too overwhelmed with the odd information.

To create the most qualitative and comfortable test personas, you can use the following resources:

• Skcript.com – a resource where you can choose a good group of templates for various needs;
• Integration Design Foundation – a specialized portal where you can not only create a necessary test persona but also find a lot of useful thematic information;
• Legaltechdesign.com – the most actual and up-to-date variations of using templates of test personas while testing web components.