Persona Design: Representativeness and Empathy through Cultural Integration

Persona design aims to increase students’ ability to understand their target users and address their needs. Yet, there is a lack of conceptual frameworks that help students systematically conceptualise user needs, specifically the two key requirements of persona design: representativeness and empathy. In this study, we find an alternative method using cultural dimensions to ensure that students conceptualise personas by reflecting representativeness and empathy in a systematic way. We justify cultural dimensions and engagement aspects and suggest a classified table for representative and empathetic persona design. In a design course, we analyse personas created by students in two different groups with the table (Group 1, n = 16) and without the table (Group 2, n = 17) through comparative thematic analysis to evaluate the qualities of representativeness and empathy. As a result, the cognitive aspect of engagement is predominated in Group 2, whereas the cognitive, emotional, behavioural, and social aspects of engagement are evenly distributed in Group 1. 11 cultural dimensions are identified in Group 2, whereas 20 cultural dimensions are identified in Group 1. In Group 2, a particular dimension is predominant (44.4% of individualism), whereas, in Group 1, the rate of the most used dimension is 12.2% (femininity and collectivism). The study results indicate that the method allows students to diversify and deepen their understanding of user needs and thereby conceptualising personas in in-depth and analytical ways. From instructional perspectives, it can be used by educators to help students systematically conceptualise user needs in design activities.