Personas are tools that are present in the mental toolbox of nearly all service designers. This tool was created between 1993 and 1994 by Angus Jenkinson.

It was then internationally adopted and distributed by the folks at OgilvyOne, who called it CustomerPrints as “day-in-the-life archetype descriptions”.

Again, you might say, this sounds great, but what the fuck is a Persona? It’s basically a fictional character that is created to represent a specific target group. A persona is a representation that helps Service Designers summarize who they work for. During a project, such personas are important because they can be used as a verification tool. You can ask yourself: Does this still make sense for this persona?

Of course, when we talk about Personas, we need to add a little note. Today, Personas have lost their shine as they were often misused. Many marketers and designers have created Personas based solely on their imagination of their target audience. In fact, the creation of Personas, at least the way I see it, should always be something that comes after substantial research about the target audience.

You create personas once you have done your qualitative research in the field by observing people and interviewing them, and after you have also done your quantitative homework, like checking statistics or creating a survey and analyzing it.

Personas are there to be a summary of your research. They shouldn’t be just a fictional character that comes out of your inspiration. I have heard many say, “I don’t believe in personas”. If their creation wasn’t based on a serious research, I perfectly understand that disbelief and hate.

This article is part of the book "A Tiny History of Service Design, " a tiny two-hour read that goes through the historical events that created what Service Design is today.