Why we should give up adding pictures to personas — the case, when empathising goes wrong

In 2008 Peter Wright and John McCarthy analysed the role of empathy and ways the designers are trying to design the best possible solutions for people. One of the described solutions was so called empathy through narrative.

Within this type of empathy, the storytelling (even though Wright and McCarthy didn’t use this word) and personas play crucial role. Personas as described by Cooper, have their own characteristics, histories, thoughts and feelings. They are described in a detail in order to help us — designers to empathise and get into the head of the user. This is what we know and this is what we do in our practice!

However, what happens when the personas are too detailed? Wachter-Boettcher in her book gave the example of one of her projects. In 2013, together with her team, she created a project reshaping the digital presence of one of professional organisations. During one of the meetings, she was presenting the newly developed personas. They were approved by the representative of the organisation. Personas had everything, what we are taught personas should have: picture, needs, motivations. Everything, which makes designers believe in them and work for their needs.

However, even though the representatives approved each personas, they could not believe in the persona personificating CEO of the company — picture was representing a black woman — Linda. Wachter-Boettcher argued, that it is not the picture which is important, but the motives and needs of the person. The representatives were not convinced, so the designers exchange the picture. The CEO became an older white man and the previously used picture was attached to the persona of a woman working on a lower position.

Interestingly, it appeared that this change was not approved by another representative of the company. Why? He did not want to reinforce the stereotypes.

Wachter-Boettcher considered this discussion and agreed with it. She noticed, that detailed personas “encouraged the team to assume that demographic information drove motivations” (Wachter-Boettcher, (2017), p. 46). People often make a mental shortcut and link the demographic averages stated in personas with other pieces of information such as motivations and needs, which actually should drive the design process. For example, when they in personas young, motivated woman, they think that this is a personification of a potention customer. They do not look into her motives and her behaviour, but instead focus on the external features: young, active, female etc.

Since that project, Wachter-Boettcher decided not to use pictures in her personas. UX researcher Indi Young, as referenced by Wachter-Boettcher, decided to skip all together the demographic data. Obviously, this might have an effect on the designers and their ability to get into the minds of users. However, this method allows to design without reinforcing the stereotypes and focus on the actual user needs.

I also believe, that taking away pictures and demographic details allows to close the discussion about race and gender on the higher position and instead focus on persons skills and motivations, which should be the basis for both UX and our normal working life.

Bibliography:

• Sara Wachter-Boettcher (2017) “Technically wrong: sexist apps, biased algorithms, and other threats of toxic tech”
• Peter Wright and John McCarthy (2008)“Empathy and Experience in HCI”