Gone are the days where a stock photo profile of “John Doe” with a large datasheets is an acceptable representation of the customer profile. When we look at representing target audiences with visual representations, such as personas, we often focus so much on digging into data of how to serve audiences that we overlook the most important parts:

Who are our customers?

What is their visual identity?

How are we sharing that information with clients to inform business decisions?

Personas are polarizing and often overemphasize physical traits over deep mental models. Over the past 8+ years, I have developed a roadmap to uncovering inclusive archetypal profiles and infographics to avoid “profiling by demographics”. Building personality-based archetypes is a more effective way to emphasize customer behaviors that drive business value.

At UXPA 2022, I presented my roadmap on reframing the persona narrative to focus on what really matters in strategic customer storytelling. Below is an excerpt from my presentation.