User Personas
Understanding the nuances of the people who we want to engage with our interventions is really helpful as we ideate and specify. This tool assumes that you are familiar with folks who would use your intervention--whether they are people who make up your school or youth program, the neighbors you see all the time, etc.
Instructions
With that love and familiarity*, make up some "personas" of your desired users. (It helps to find a really kooky set of action figures, so you stay playful and not too literal.)
*Note: It's important that your user personas reflect the complexity of humans, that is: they aren't caricatures of "how teens act" or "what an unhoused person needs", etc. This isn't about essentializing people and "arranging" them as certain kinds of subjects.
You can read more about “How We Arrange Ourselves and Each Other” in the Ideas-Arrangements-Effects book, pt. 48-51.
Once you've thought about your possible users, you can use them to act out (or just talk through) HOW they would interact with your intervention. For example:
What would draw them into this intervention?
Conversely, what might turn them off?
What would they do there?
What would you like them to walk away with? (an idea, a level of involvement, a commitment to...)
What would they leave behind?
Example User Personas
Here are user persona descriptions that we've used with different groups (youth organizers, Radical Imagination for Racial Justice collaborators, and more). Feel free to use them or edit them as handy!
Melanie Dotson, 36. Wants to talk local and national politics and to keep people informed. Ten years clean. Lost a lot of years and is hungry for change.
Toast, 25. Knows the history of Roxbury and Dorchester.
Destiny Jones, MassArt student, 2nd year. Is a sculptor who dreams about quilt patterns and city design. Grew up with grandparents in Orchard Park.
Ronald G. Older gentleman who has been to jail a few times, loves to cook, curates his home with art from magazines.
Octavius Depina, 33. Loves rap music. Makes lyrics and beats in his head. Is often harassed by police during cypher circles with his friends.
Miss Phan, 64. Elder in the Community who has been talking to and feeding anyone and everyone for years. Has a lot of stories.
Joe “Mystique” Robinson, 39, police officer. Took the job because he cares about his community. Struggles with being seen as an enemy by his own people. Was not his intent. Struggles with not being seen by his coworkers.
See other Ideation tools
