Different ways to identify user segments — roles, demographics, need states and personas.

Users are at the core of UX research and design, and there are many ways to identify or group them.

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I find I get a lot of questions about how to group them, and why you might use different types of user identification. Below are the some of most common methods used throughout industry and government, along with short examples to help you understand each approach.

Roles

Roles frame what a person is trying to accomplish within a particular context. This could be their job, or their role interacting with a service — such as customer, advisor, or call centre operative.

Roles are sometimes referred to as actors, and when you have a clear idea and shared understanding of the different roles or actors involved in a service, you are better able to define their experience.

Roles help to identify common tasks, motivations and pain points. Roles could intersect with demographic groups or personas.

Some practitioners focus on roles when the products or services they’re working on have different types of users who interact with each other or the service under specific circumstances based on their role. This is…