Why User Persona is Necessary For Your App?

In almost every industry be it finance, advertising, retail, or mobile app development, that too across any nation in the world, business people are stuck with the same question- “What do my customers want?”

Taking the same concern ahead in the field of mobile app development, the question was not important earlier but now as the competition is quite fierce and the demand for convenience is at its highest, in such a situation, finding an answer is mandatory.

Also, contrary to our surprise, crunching numbers of users won’t reveal exact customer needs, nor can one rely on past strategies since customer tastes change as per the changing trend. 

To curb this situation, there is a solution- popularly known as the user persona. 

Personas are the heart of any marketing or sales strategy but what is a user persona?

Well, personas are lifelike, fictional characters created by mobile app developers reflecting the user’s needs, expectations, and desires regarding the mobile application. The ultimate goal of creating a mobile app user persona is to get a quick and crystal-clear picture of what your user wants and how to deal with the frequent changes in taste. 

Types of User Personas

After understanding how to define a user persona, let us now check out its types-

• Buyer personas generally represent target users. These are the people involved in the decision to purchase your mobile applications or services.
• Website personas consist of all the people that a website is meant to serve. They are critical in guiding website design while providing important audiences that buyer personas don’t account for (e.g., existing customers, your customers’ clients, investors, etc) as well as crucial behavioral considerations that guide user experiences.
• User personas represent the individuals who will be using your mobile application, regardless of whether they have any influence over the purchasing decision. 

So, these are the very basic types of persona often used by the organization. As we are talking about what is user personas and the steps required to make them, let us first understand why you need to create user personas for your mobile app through its numerous benefits.

Benefits of Creating User Personas Before Developing An App

Bringing In More Exact Outcomes

By creating a mobile app user persona, it will become easier for the entire development team to understand who their target audience is.

In addition to this, the process can also avoid the risk of developing an app based entirely on the interest of the designers and not developing it as per the user’s requirements and expectations. Thus, there will not be any confusion or difference of opinion among the mobile app development team regarding the development of the app. 

No More Difference in Opinion

In a mobile app development company, the firm is filled with developers, QA, testers, and designers carrying skills and expertise in their respective lines. 

With the help of user persona, the development team will get a clear picture of what users want with no difference of opinion. Thus, everyone will be on the same page sticking to the exact needs of the users. 

More Focused Approach

Your development team must have brainstormed the idea of designing an app that caters to the requirements of a particular category of people. But what if users don’t want the app at that particular point?

In such a situation, the mobile app user persona can help in figuring out what a user wants at that particular point.

Helps in Making a Preferable App

By getting the information and tips of what your users want in the application, the practice will ultimately help developers and designers to stick to their needs.

It will be fair enough to say that the practice is more or less like Minimum Viable Product, the only difference is that in MVP, you make the changes after getting feedback and responses whereas the mobile app User persona shows the clear picture in the very beginning. The goal of both procedures is to meet the needs of the users. 

Hence, by getting a clear-cut idea about the mobile application along with what users want, the outcome, in the end, will match the persona made. 

Helps in App Positioning

Considering the user personas will help you in placing your apps in the market. Through this, you can overcome issues and challenges you might face at the time of product positioning. Therefore, in such a situation, you will be able to make use of existing marketing strategies and techniques. 

What Are the Ways to Collect User Data

There are many sources to collect user data, a few among them are-

• Use the pre-existing information that you have collected in the past for previous app development projects.
• By making assumptions you must have enough knowledge regarding the app development process. Though the point is not valid for startups startups can take some ideas from their competitor’s quality of product and how they are delivering the best. Meanwhile, doing the research stays at the top.
• Making use of Web analytics for gathering user data. 
• Surveys are still the best option.
• Also, nothing can beat conducting interviews with a real person. 

With this, we are done with the basics of user persona but how do you write user personas, or better say do you know how to write user persona? Let’s dig deeper and know the easiest and smartest way of creating it. 

5 Steps to Make a Mobile App User Persona

Know the Method of Research

This is the first and foremost step of making a user persona. Here, the mobile app development company is required to know who their potential customers or users are. 

Researchers will be complied with to know users of different fields, ages, educational levels, genres, etc. There are various ways to go ahead with the practice like- 

• A questionnaire- it is faster and collects more data.
• On-line or off-line medium
• Face-to-face interviews- take time but the information is usually worthwhile.
• Surveys- take time.

However, to get a fast and accurate result, divide all the interviewees into a group of 6 to 12 members and let them handle all the topics offered by the organizers.  

Knowing the Actual Users

Once you are done with the data for analysis, it’s the right time to take a closer look at the gathered data to see if everything falls in the right place. Here, you need to figure out that different groups of people have a novel approach to the application. 

Hypotheses Building

Based on the research conclusions, here at this point, it is important to find the difference between all the potential users. 

Once done, note down why there are inequalities between the potential users regarding the mobile app idea. 

Verifications

Here, figure out what are the things your user likes and dislikes along with finding out their internal demands and also in what situation the persona will use the mobile application. 

User Patterns

Through the classification of the information gathered, mobile app developers can check out the right user etiquette and their mobile usage habits before creating the right mobile app user persona.

As we are done with how to create a user persona, let us now check out the tips to keep in mind when creating the same.

Tips for Creating a Successful Persona

• Understand that a successful app is different for different users. Hence, always take your app’s multiple “successful uses” into consideration when building user personas.
• The process of research does not end with the launch of the application in the market. Once the app is live on the app store, you can still understand and edit your personas from your own user’s data. 
• When designing an application, keep your users in mind and design your app by prioritizing your user’s interests. Eliminate self-referential design.

Mistakes to Avoid When Drawing User Persona

• Most of the time assumptions lead to failure. Similar is the situation when drawing user persona, through assumptions, you can end up assigning unrealistic characteristics to your personas. Remember that users are different and they will not often act logically or methodically to every aspect of your application. Hence, take into account users’ real-life emotions, frustrations, and everyday issues when forming real user personas.
• Always remember that each persona will reflect an entire group of app users. No matter if each persona is detailed, getting a 100% accurate persona result is hard. Thus, make some space for variance in your personas and adapt accordingly.
• Until and unless your mobile app is there, creating a persona will be a never-ending task. To draw most of your persona, you will be required to be open to changes in user behavior along with checking out their interests and technological trends.

Now, you must be aware of what a good user persona looks like, let us now delve deeper and know the questions to ask while making a user persona.

Questions to Ask When Creating a User Persona??

1. What is your user’s age?
2. What is your user’s income?
3. What is your user’s highest level of education completed?
4. Where do your users locate?
5. What is your user’s gender?
6. What is their current occupation?
7. What is your user’s marital status?
8. Know if they have children?
9. Know about their family structure?
10. Do they have any specific hobbies?
11. Are they involved in any kind of activities or organizations/
12. How did you hear about our company?
13. What is the thing that attracted you to us?
14. What was your first impression of our company?
15. How will you define our company by comparing it with others?
16. What is your biggest concern regarding using our mobile application?
17. Why did you choose our mobile app development company instead of choosing the other one?
18. What can make us better than before?
19. How often do you check emails on your phone, at home, or at work?
20. What type of online information do you read and prefer?
21. what do you pay attention to more- publications, blogs, or social media content?
22. Which search engine do you use the most?
23. What is your process of finding things online?
24. What is your decision-making process when buying things online?
25. What is the thing that influences your purchasing decision?
26. What is the most important thing when you select a service or choose a mobile application?
27. What are the key factors that deter you from making a decision?