Definition
A Persona, defines a typical user who interacts with the system. The idea is to design software effectively for people, who are intended to interact with it. Personas are different in nature than ‘Actors’. Unlike Actors, Personas are not ‘roles’ that people play.
Personas differ in nature, because they are descriptive of archetypes, instead of actors. For example, in a used case model we would have a customer as the actor. In personas however, we would describe several different types of customers, and help bring their vision to life. Usually, it is commonplace for 1-2 pages to be written for each Persona. Since, the goal is to bring your users to life, a good Persona is recommended to be highly personalized.
Further Reading
- “Agile Software Architecture: Chapter 4. Driving Architectural Design and Preservation from a Persona Perspective in Agile Projects”(book), by by