Why Personas Aren’t Useful

November 14th, 2007
[ Software Development ]

I’m not sure Alan Cooper created the concept of personas, however, he certainly contributed heavily. I’m a fan of Alan’s work and I’ve always liked personas.

Jason Fried, CEO of 37signals, comments on personas:

“Personas can’t make mistakes. Personas can’t make value judgements. Personas don’t use products. Personas aren’t real.”

Tough to argue with, however, isn’t working with personas a lot better than nothing at all? Following along, isn’t working with real users a lot better than personas?