A note on language
The downloadable template is in Spanish. This page explains what it contains and the reasoning behind it, so you can judge whether it fits before translating.
When to use it
Once you have done the research. Personas synthesize data that exists; they are not the starting point, they are the result.
With no research, what you are building is a proto-persona — the team's hypothesis about who the user is. That is legitimate and useful, and it should be called by its name. The problem starts when a proto-persona is presented as a Persona and the team begins deciding on assumptions believing it is deciding on evidence.
Do not confuse them with marketing segments or with the data team's segmentation either. Those group by who buys and how much; a Persona groups by how someone behaves and why. They can coexist, and it is worth spelling out the difference, because that is the first question the business side asks.
Before you use it
Group by behaviour, not demographics. Two people of the same age in the same district can behave in opposite ways. Demographics only earn a place if they change the behaviour.
Motivation is the field that pays off most. Of everything on the card, the one that unblocks the most decisions is why this person does what they do. If you only have time to polish one, polish that.
Three or four, maximum. With more, the team does not use them: choosing between seven cards costs more than looking at none. They are ranked primary, secondary and tertiary, and that ranking is what settles design ties.
Every claim with its evidence. A field with no backing is an assumption, and it gets marked as one. That is what lets you defend them when someone asks where it came from.
Building them is not the work; getting them used is. It is the most expensive mistake with this deliverable, which is why the template carries the adoption plan inside it.
Everything in brackets gets replaced. The worked example lives on this page and not in the downloadable file.
The document
One card per persona, repeated as many times as you have, up to four. It is in Spanish.
{/* --- INICIO DOCUMENTO --- */}
Estudio: [nombre del estudio] Fuentes: [n entrevistas, encuesta a n, analytics de (periodo)] Fecha: [DD/MM/AAAA] · Próxima revisión: [DD/MM/AAAA]
Cómo se diferencian de la segmentación que ya existe
[En dos frases: qué agrupa la segmentación de negocio o de datos, y qué agrupa esta. No compiten.]
[Nombre ficticio] · [primaria / secundaria / terciaria]
[Foto o ilustración. Un arquetipo, no una persona real: no uses la cara de alguien de tu muestra.]
"[Cita textual de una sesión, no inventada. La que mejor resume su manera de ver el problema.]"
Motivación
[Por qué hace lo que hace. Qué quiere conseguir, en sus términos y no en los del producto.]
Evidencia: [de dónde sale — P1, P4, P7; o la pregunta de la encuesta]
Necesidades y dolores
- [Necesidad] · evidencia: [ ]
- [Dolor] · evidencia: [ ]
- [Dolor] · evidencia: [ ]
Comportamientos observados
- [Qué hace, en concreto y con su frecuencia real] · evidencia: [X de N participantes]
- [Qué hace] · evidencia: [ ]
Contexto
[Dónde y cuándo ocurre esto: dispositivo, momento, con quién, con cuánto tiempo, con qué interrupciones.]
Qué la diferencia de las otras
[Cómo la reconocerías si conversaras con ella. Este campo es el que evita que las cuatro fichas terminen pareciéndose.]
Escenario
[Una situación concreta, en tres o cuatro frases, donde esta persona se encuentra con el problema. Sin nombrar pantallas ni botones.]
Supuestos sin evidencia
[Lo que el equipo cree pero no midió. Va acá y no arriba, y se revisa en la próxima actualización.]
Plan de adopción
Sin esto la ficha es un póster. Se completa antes de presentarlas, no después.
Presentación · [fecha]
El orden que funciona: qué son y por qué se levantaron · cómo se llegó a ellas · en qué se diferencian de la segmentación existente · las personas, primarias y secundarias, y qué las distingue entre sí · próximos pasos.
Preguntas frecuentes anticipadas
| Pregunta que va a salir | Respuesta preparada |
|---|---|
| ¿Esto reemplaza la segmentación de [área]? | [ ] |
| ¿De cuántas personas salió? | [ ] |
| ¿Cada cuánto se actualizan? | [ ] |
| [ ] | [ ] |
Después de la presentación
| Acción | Responsable | Fecha |
|---|---|---|
| Taller de aplicación con [equipo] | [ ] | [ ] |
| Repositorio permanente en [dónde] | [ ] | [ ] |
| Revisar en qué iniciativas se usaron | [ ] | [ ] |
Señal de que se adoptaron: [qué vas a poder observar en tres meses si esto funcionó — que aparezcan nombradas en un ticket, en una discusión de diseño, en un criterio de priorización].
Nota de método y limitaciones
Construidas a partir de [n] entrevistas y [fuentes cuantitativas]. Los patrones describen comportamientos observados en la muestra, no proporciones de la población.
Estas Personas no incorporan una mirada de inclusión — género, discapacidad, origen, y otras características que hacen a alguien único y que cambian su relación con el producto. Es un primer paso sobre la variabilidad, no un mapa completo de ella.
Caducan. Revisar en [fecha]: si el producto o el mercado cambiaron, la ficha describe a alguien que ya no existe.
{/* --- FIN DOCUMENTO --- */}
A worked example
On a retail project, the attributes that paid off were not the generic ones but these four, in this order:
Motivation — what they want and why they are acting. It turned out to be the most relevant aspect of all: identifying the driver and how it tied to their relationship with the company.
Relationship with the company — needs, pains and expectations towards it specifically, not towards the category in general.
How they differ from other profiles — how you would recognize them if you saw or talked to them.
How they buy — the concrete behaviour that separates them from the rest.
The final presentation was organised in five blocks: what Personas are and why they were built, the methodology, the difference from the internal business-intelligence segmentation, the detail of the primary and secondary ones, and next steps. That third block — the difference from the segmentation that already existed — is the one that prevented the most questions.
The full process, with its eight stages and what went wrong at each, is in Cómo construí(r) las User Personas (in Spanish).
This example lives here only, not in the downloadable file.
Check before using it
- Does every claim carry its evidence, or are there unmarked assumptions?
- Are there four or fewer?
- Are they grouped by behaviour rather than demographics?
- Does "what sets this one apart" say something different on each card?
- Is there any demographic detail that does not change behaviour? Delete it.
- Is the photo an archetype rather than the face of someone from your sample?
- Does the adoption plan have owners and dates, or is it empty?
- Did you set a review date?
Grounding
The steps, the common mistakes and the card fields come from this site's User Personas entry.
The example's attributes and the presentation order come from Cómo construí(r) las User Personas, and the adoption plan from Cómo promover la adopción de las User Personas, which tells what worked and what did not on a real case. Both are in Spanish.
Personas are built from what comes out of the sessions: the research plan declares them as a deliverable and the interview guide collects the material.