Published: Sep 15, 2026

Personas are common in user experience and design work. They are fictional but research-informed representations of different types of users, often including their goals, behaviors, needs, motivations, and challenges. But personas can also raise an important question for researchers: Are they a research method, or are they simply a design tool?

The answer is usually somewhere in between. Personas are not typically a standalone research method in the same way that interviews, surveys, or ethnography are. Instead, they are usually developed from research data and then used to organize, communicate, and apply what researchers have learned about a group of users. Researchers have described personas as a way to translate qualitative and quantitative findings into more concrete representations of users.

A strong persona should begin with evidence rather than imagination. Researchers might conduct interviews, focus groups, observations, diary studies, or other forms of user research and then look for recurring patterns across participants. For example, imagine interviewing students about how they seek research help from the library. Analysis might reveal several different patterns. Some students may prefer to work independently and seek help only when they are stuck. Others may want guidance early in the research process, while another group may avoid asking for help because they are unsure whom to approach.

Those patterns could be developed into several personas representing different approaches to seeking research assistance. Research on data-grounded personas emphasizes that personas should emerge from systematic analysis of actual user experiences rather than from assumptions about what users are like.

Personas often include a name and a short profile, but the most useful information is usually connected directly to the research question. This might include:

• goals and motivations;
• behaviors and practices;
• challenges or frustrations;
• attitudes and preferences;
• relevant experiences; and
• needs related to the service, system, or environment being studied.

Demographic information should be included only when it is meaningful to the research. Adding an age, gender, occupation, photograph, or other characteristic simply to make a persona appear more realistic can unintentionally encourage stereotypes. Avoiding stereotypes is one of the biggest challenges in persona development. A persona is meant to represent a meaningful pattern in the data, not a simplified type of person. For example, creating a persona called “The Tech-Savvy Young Student” based primarily on age risks turning assumptions into findings. Instead, the researcher might identify a pattern such as “The Independent Digital Explorer,” supported by evidence showing that some participants consistently prefer self-directed searching, online tutorials, and experimentation before asking for assistance.

Research on personas has long cautioned that fictionalized user representations can reinforce stereotypes, particularly when details are invented or when researchers overgeneralize from limited data. One way to reduce this risk is to continually ask: Can I trace this characteristic back to my data? If not, it may not belong in the persona.

Personas can be useful in library and information science research because so much LIS work focuses on users, information practices, services, and systems. Researchers might develop personas to represent:

• different approaches to using library services;
• patterns of information-seeking behavior;
• experiences with digital collections or discovery systems;
• student research behaviors;
• community technology needs; or
• different ways people interact with archives and information resources.

Once developed, personas can also support service design. A library could use evidence-based personas to ask how a new website, instruction program, or service might work for people with different goals and behaviors.

It is probably most useful to think of personas as a bridge between research and design. The research comes first: researchers collect and analyze evidence about users. Personas then help translate those findings into representations that can be easier to discuss and apply.

Personas should not replace the original qualitative data, nor should they be treated as actual participants. They are analytic and communication tools built from patterns identified across participants. Used carefully, personas can help researchers make complex qualitative findings more accessible while keeping attention focused on users’ goals, behaviors, and experiences. The key is to make sure the persona remains grounded in evidence rather than becoming a fictional character built from assumptions.

Further reading

Pruitt, J., & Grudin, J. — “Personas: Practice and Theory.”
A foundational discussion of how personas can communicate research about users and support user-centered design.

Huynh, T., et al. — “Building Personas from Phenomenography: A Method for User-Centered Design in Education.”
A  process of creating personas from phenomenographic studies, which can help researchers create data-grounded personas.