Persona Template

Aurora Harley, User Experience specialist at the Nielsen Norman Group, explains that there are six
common pieces of information that make up a persona:

• Name, age, gender, and an image of the persona, preferably including some context in the
background

• A tag line, indicating what the persona does or considers relevant in his or her life

• The experience and relevant skills the persona has in the area of the product or service you will
be developing

• Some context to indicate how they would interact with your product or service (e.g. the
voluntariness of use, frequency of use, and preferred device)

• Any goals, attitudes, and concerns they would have when using your product or service

• Quotes or a brief scenario, which indicate the persona’s attitude toward the product or service
you’re designing. If the persona already uses an existing product or service to meet his or her
needs, you might describe the use of that here.

These elements can then be combined into a layout, which is the same for every persona you
create in a project. As you’ll most likely develop more than one persona for a design problem, to
cover the whole breadth of your user group and the diversity of characteristics in it, keeping to one
layout will help you communicate the variety in personas clearly. Below is an example (followed by
a template you can print and use) of what such a layout could look like.

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Creative Commons BY-SA license: You are free to edit and redistribute this template, even for commercial use, as long as you give credit to the Interaction Design Foundation. Also, if you remix,
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[Continued from previous page]

Name
Give your persona a memorable name

Age
Give a precise age which falls into the representative age
band for this persona

Insert a photo of your Psyche

persona here Is your persona an introvert or extrovert?

Background What is the occupation of your persona? Describe their

main responsibilities and issues at work.

What is their education level and familiarity with

technology?

What are their roles, other than work (e.g. mom, caregiver,
volunteer), and what responsibilities do they bring?

Emotions and attitudes What is the persona’s attitude towards technology, the
company, the information?

Personal traits Describe any personal traits that might impact on your
project, e.g., is the person a fast and keen learner, do they
embrace or resist change, are they enthusiastic, would they
make a good ambassador for your solution?

Needs What are the needs of this persona that could be

addressed by your project? Why do they arise? Do these
needs come into conflict with requirements arising from
the persona’s other roles?

Situations What are the situations this persona finds themselves in,
with respect to their needs? Give an account of these
situations, for example, by describing the way this person
currently addresses their needs, or giving an account of
how they go about their business during the day.

Scenarios Create some scenarios that show how the person

manages to solve their needs in a new way, using your
product. The scenario should have a beginning (presents
the user and what the persona wants to achieve), middle
(what the user does with your product and the persona’s
motivation for pursuing the goal) and end (describes
whether the persona succeeds in his or her intentions).

[Continued on next page]

INTERACTION-DESIGN.ORG

Creative Commons BY-SA license: You are free to edit and redistribute this template, even for commercial use, as long as you give credit to the Interaction Design Foundation. Also, if you remix,
transform, or build upon this template, you must distribute it under the same CC BY-SA license.
 Music is essential to Rebecca’s life. Rebecca’s situation
She is listening to tunes almost every Goals, motivations:
• Listen to great music to keep her productive at
second of her life, particularly while work
working. • Relax and unwind at the end of the day

Obstacles Rebecca faces: • Superior music quality for full enjoyment of

tracks
• Too busy to explore new music artists she might like
• Expand the circle of music artists she listens to
• Streaming music consumes a lot of data
Key words

Rebecca How will Rebecca interact with

music, jazz, r&b, pop, artists, new releases, top
charts, background music
Casual audiophile
Age 26 Spotify?
Gender Female Questions Rebecca will ask: Rebecca’s story
Occupation Frontend developer • How do I keep updated on new releases by artists I Music is a big part of my life; I like to think that I always
Marital status Single follow? have a “background music” running in each scene of my
Location Mountain View • How do I learn of new artists I haven’t heard of? life. I love working while listening to music; somehow, it
gives me a lot of focus on my task.
• Can I listen to music in a data-efficient manner?
• How can I listen on both my MacBook and my I regularly talk to my co-workers about music and
Online locations Work and mobile iPhone? singers — that’s what we like to talk about over lunch.
iPhone and MacBook Pro We’re constantly looking for new artists to inspire us
Computer(s)
and to expand our music library, but lately it seems a
Internet usage 8-9 hours
little tough to do that. Everything seems to have a “filter

TECHNOPHOBE TECH WIZ

Who influences Rebecca? bubble” effect, and we keep listening to the same
genres and artists.

CDs MUSIC STREAMING Ads I really enjoy finding new artists that match my
Friends
subjective taste, and most of the times I get those from
Her own my close friends. I wish there were a way to find more
CASUAL LISTENER HARDCORE GEEK
Music tastes Co- music and artists without having to rely on the
charts workers serendipity of life!

Example of a persona that shows the six main elements you should include. Name, age, gender, tag line, experience and skills are placed on the left-hand side. The middle column focuses on the context
to indicate how they would interact with a product or service. Finally, on the right-hand side some goals and concerns are shared, as well as a short scenario to indicate the persona’s attitude.

INTERACTION-DESIGN.ORG

Creative Commons BY-SA license: You are free to edit and redistribute this template, even for commercial use, as long as you give credit to the Interaction Design Foundation. Also, if you remix, transform, or build upon this template, you must distribute it under the same CC BY-SA license.
 Persona Template
Name

Age

Insert a photo of your Psyche

persona here

Background

Emotions and attitudes

Personal traits

Needs

Situations

Scenarios

INTERACTION-DESIGN.ORG

Creative Commons BY-SA license: You are free to edit and redistribute this template, even for commercial use, as long as you give credit to the Interaction Design Foundation. Also, if you remix,
transform, or build upon this template, you must distribute it under the same CC BY-SA license.
 Context and obstacles faced: Situation: Goals, motivations, keywords

Insert a photo of your

persona here

Name: How will he/she interact with your product/service?

Age:
Story

Gender:

Occupation: Questions he/she will ask:

Marital status:

Location:

Other traits: Influences:

Template of a persona that shows the six main elements you should include. Name, age, gender, tag line, experience and skills are placed on the left-hand side. The middle column focuses on the
context to indicate how they would interact with a product or service. Finally, on the right-hand side some goals and concerns are shared, as well as a short scenario to indicate the persona’s attitude.

INTERACTION-DESIGN.ORG

Creative Commons BY-SA license: You are free to edit and redistribute this template, even for commercial use, as long as you give credit to the Interaction Design Foundation. Also, if you remix, transform, or build upon this template, you must distribute it under the same CC BY-SA license.
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