{"id":1516,"date":"2021-05-10T18:34:20","date_gmt":"2021-05-10T15:34:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/persona.qcri.org\/blog\/?p=1516"},"modified":"2023-11-03T09:35:10","modified_gmt":"2023-11-03T06:35:10","slug":"the-two-definitions-of-personas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/persona.qcri.org\/blog\/the-two-definitions-of-personas\/","title":{"rendered":"The two (most distinct) definitions of personas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>People sometimes struggle to understand what we mean by personas.<\/p>\n<p>This is because there are two alternative <a href=\"https:\/\/persona.qcri.org\/blog\/data-driven-personas-glossary-terms\/\">definitions to personas<\/a>. This blog posts explains each of these definitions.<\/p>\n<h2>The Social Psychology Definition of Personas<\/h2>\n<p>A persona can refer to public image,\u00a0public identity, self-representation, or impression management. That is, a persona is how one wants themselves perceived. For example, if I aspire to be &#8220;Professor Joni,&#8221; I would adopt mannerisms, communicate in a &#8220;professor-like&#8221; way, choose social media profile pictures, and share information about myself that supports this aspirational identity.<\/p>\n<p>This angle to personas is slightly different from what automatically generated personas are about. These apirational personas refer to personas as a reflection of one\u2019s identity or public image.<\/p>\n<h2>The Human-Computer Interaction Definition of Personas<\/h2>\n<p>That\u2019s not what APG does. We\u2019re defining personas as \u201cartificial people representing real user groups\u201d. This definition of personas is used in marketing \/ <a href=\"https:\/\/persona.qcri.org\/blog\/nlp-vs-hci-personas-whats-the-difference\/\">human-computer interaction (HCI)<\/a>, seeing personas as user or customer groups, whereas the aspirational persona definition is often used in media studies \/ <a href=\"https:\/\/persona.qcri.org\/blog\/theory-of-personas\/\">social psychology<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>So, the main distinction is that the first definition of personas approaches the concept of personas from the public image point of view. In contrast, the second definition sees personas as representation of target users for whom to design or develop products, services, systems, and so on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>People sometimes struggle to understand what we mean by personas. This is because there are two alternative definitions to personas. This blog posts explains each of these definitions. The Social Psychology Definition of Personas A persona can refer to public image,\u00a0public identity, self-representation, or impression management. That is, a persona is how one wants themselves [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[528,527,529,33],"class_list":["post-1516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personas","tag-aspirational-personas","tag-definition","tag-hci-personas","tag-personas"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The two (most distinct) definitions of personas &#8211; The Persona Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/persona.qcri.org\/blog\/the-two-definitions-of-personas\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The two (most distinct) definitions of personas &#8211; The Persona Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"People sometimes struggle to understand what we mean by personas. This is because there are two alternative definitions to personas. This blog posts explains each of these definitions. The Social Psychology Definition of Personas A persona can refer to public image,\u00a0public identity, self-representation, or impression management. 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