Little Guide to Personas

Customers → Buyers, Users, Beneficiaries

Buyers → those who pay for a product. This typically means more than just the one who hands over the credit card, but in a business setting, one who is accountable for the value that a product will bring to others. They have to “buy in” to the value proposition of the product and validate that that value will be worth the price. I.e., Will the company realize that value proposition in terms of revenues and cost structure?

Users → those who actually use the product to realize its value proposition. Do they actually save time by using it? Are they able to accomplish more and at a higher quality than without this product? Are they able to do things they weren’t able to do before, like access information, data, or a network of people?

Beneficiaries → those who realize the secondary effects of a value proposition, but without using the product. An agent may use new ticketing software to manage inbound requests from clients, and if that agent can be friendlier, more responsive, more accurate with their services directly because of that software, then their clients benefit.

Pet Peeve: User vs Power User

This is a common dichotomy that worked its way into interaction design in the mid 2000s.

The problem is that this classification just doesn’t work in practice. It’s too reductionist and it becomes a distraction from actually unpacking the mindset that real people have when using a product or service.