The Positive Influence of Negative Personas

by Marty Molloy

Personas are nothing new, but here at W5 we have noticed clients are asking for them in various ways―all with the ultimate goal of knowing consumers better. While the approach and tools have been around for a while, Personas got their start in UX design with the idea to create real people for UX designers to reference in order to get out of their own heads and consider for whom they were actually designing. Often, tech companies would use them to figure out form factors, use cases, and key capabilities. Since its inception, Personas research has evolved beyond just the world of UX design and gained loyal followings across a vast array of industries and initiatives, as we’ve seen and facilitated extensively here at W5.

When used properly, Personas are less about categorizing who people are (often Segmentations are better for this) and more about creating empathy toward consumers for internal teams who are typically hyper-focused on goals and workflow. Thanks to their emergence from the tech industry, Personas have been widely proven as a valuable tool for crafting solutions across a diverse range of solutions, such as product and store design, product positioning, messaging and communications, etc.

That said, there are a lot of nuances surrounding Persona design. Along with the Personas of consumers you would expect to see, W5 typically includes one to two Personas we deem as “negative Personas” to highlight profiles not worth pursuing. In a recent article from Think with Google, the author highlight the idea of “negative keywords” for advertising-centric Personas, which follows our same line of thought.

I’d argue that the idea of building negatives into Personas is an excellent concept. While the goal is to determine the ideal “who” and “how,” knowing you’re not going to turn an audience off is maybe equally as important.

Consumers are many things, but they are neither one-dimensional nor purely rational. Leveraging negative Personas as safeguards can help marketers and designers consider these quirks and ensure they do not inadvertently turn a portion of their audience off.

Here are some questions to ask yourself when thinking of negative concepts or ideas to look out for:

·        What irks consumers about a shopping experience?

·        What are the pain points that cannot be solved but are important to avoid because they will hold sway?

·        What other life elements could influence consumers to give up or make less-than-rational decisions to increase ease?

·        What do consumers care little about but will be annoyed if brands over-focus on?

W5 is adept at both understanding and translating client needs and tapping into consumer motivations. Leveraging our experience, we understand the strength of Personas is their ability to weave a story about the lives of consumer archetypes. As you design products, brand architecture, communications etc. in the coming year, W5 can ensure consumer consideration is front and center of your efforts.

 
Want to see sample reports and deliverables from W5’s Personas research? Drop us a line!