Diverse Viewpoints on User Profiles or Characters
In the realm of User Experience (UX) design, user personas have proven to be a valuable tool, often considered the most popular and useful in the field. Lene Nielsen, a UX expert, has described four perspectives that these personas can take to add significant value to UX design projects. The ultimate goal is to make users feel "real" and increase engagement during the design process.
These personas, being more engaging, incorporate both goal-directed and role-directed personas, in addition to traditional user personas. Fictional personas, while not derived from direct user research, can serve as a good starting point for user research. However, they should not be considered definitive until validated with real users.
The first perspective is the Goal-Directed Persona, which focuses on what the typical user wants to do with the product. This perspective helps designers understand the user's objectives and preferences in the product's workflow.
The second perspective is the Role-Directed Persona, which considers where the product will be used, the purpose of the role, business objectives required of the role, who else is impacted by the duties of the role, and the functions served by the role. By examining the roles that users typically play in real-life, better product design decisions can be made.
The four perspectives for user personas in UX design are typically centered around these key viewpoints: Say, Do, Think & Feel, and See & Hear. These perspectives together help designers build empathy and a comprehensive understanding of users, which contributes significantly to human-centered design.
- Say involves what users explicitly express in interviews, surveys, or usability tests — their direct quotes and verbal feedback. It captures their stated needs, desires, and opinions about the product or service.
- Do focuses on users' actual behaviors and actions, such as how they interact with a product, what steps they take, or what features they use. It grounds persona development in real observed behaviors rather than assumptions.
- Think & Feel explores users’ emotions, motivations, frustrations, and beliefs — often what they might not openly say but can be inferred through research. It helps uncover the emotional drivers behind user decisions.
- See & Hear reflects the external influences on users — what they are exposed to from their environment, including social circles, media, or competitors. Understanding this context aids designers in framing experiences relevant to users’ worldviews.
These perspectives are often integrated into tools like empathy maps or persona maps to create rich, multidimensional user personas that go beyond demographics and surface-level traits.
By promoting empathy, helping teams focus decisions on real user needs, providing a shared reference point for cross-functional teams, supporting user-centered innovation, and allowing evaluation of design choices and solutions against concrete user scenarios, these perspectives form the foundation for user personas that deeply inform and align the UX design process by integrating user research and empathy into every stage.
Fictional personas can be thought of as an initial sketch of user needs rather than a detailed portrait. The creation of fictional personas requires the UX design team to make assumptions based on their past interactions with the user base and products. Fictional personas allow for better early involvement of users in the UX design process.
In conclusion, the four perspectives (Say, Do, Think & Feel, See & Hear) form the foundation for user personas that deeply inform and align the UX design process by integrating user research and empathy into every stage.
User personas, incorporating goal-directed and role-directed personas, are vital in UX design as they help designers understand user objectives, preferences, roles, and external influences. These personas, whether derived from direct user research or serving as an initial sketch, provide a shared reference point for cross-functional teams and support user-centered innovation.
Fictional personas can serve as a good starting point for user research, as they allow for better early involvement of users in the UX design process by promoting empathy, focusing decisions on real user needs, and allowing evaluation of design choices against concrete user scenarios.
