Getting to know your users with a Persona Empathy Workshop

Photo by You X Ventures on Unsplash

Personas are one of the most popular tools in user research, and are a great way to create shared understanding about users. But they are useless unless people know what they are and how to utilize them.

I’ve found that the best way to do this is through a workshop where participants practice thinking from the user’s perspective and brainstorm ways to improve their experience.

Why a workshop?

Last year, I joined a Japanese app company without a user research culture, and my first task was to conduct discovery research and create personas of current users.

Once they were done, I shared them on Slack and stuck them up around the office.

Everyone seemed pleased, and I thought we were on the right track — until someone asked if they could meet one of the personas…

This made me realize that in order for personas to be effective, there would need to be shared understanding across the whole company (not limited to product people) about what personas are, how they are created and how they can be used.

I put together a Persona Empathy Workshop and had all employees — not just designers and engineers — take part.

The workshops not only increased empathy for users and understanding about the personas across the company, but having a variety of participants from across different functions work together resulted in some great product improvement ideas.

How to conduct a Persona Empathy Workshop

• Time required: 1 hour (can spend more time if schedules allow for it)
• Participants: 8~12
• Items required: User Persona, 1 piece of paper per person, post its, markers, snacks and music.

1. Explain the goals of the workshop (5 minutes)

Firstly, I get everyone on the same page by explaining what participants can hope to achieve from participating in the workshop.

Workshop Goals:

1. Empathize with the user