{"id":1644,"date":"2021-10-10T16:49:16","date_gmt":"2021-10-10T13:49:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/persona.qcri.org\/blog\/?p=1644"},"modified":"2023-11-02T16:20:36","modified_gmt":"2023-11-02T13:20:36","slug":"first-and-second-order-utility-of-personas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/persona.qcri.org\/blog\/first-and-second-order-utility-of-personas\/","title":{"rendered":"First- and second-order utility of personas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Wan to share an observation about first- and second-order utility of personas. What do these terms mean?<\/p>\n<p><strong>first-order utility:<\/strong> personas help the designer to understand people (i.e., they help the designer do their job better)<br \/>\n<strong>second-order utility:<\/strong> the benefit to the users via the use of personas (e.g., new features, better usability)<\/p>\n<p>These two can be in conflict.<\/p>\n<p>Consider the following example: designers use an inaccurate persona that is still empathetic but reports the wrong needs, i.e., those not actually corresponding to what people want. The designer obtains first-order utility from the persona as it helps them to create the feature the persona wants; but this does not bring second-order utility because the actual users do not find value in the developed feature.<\/p>\n<p>This example highlights the difficulty of measuring <a href=\"https:\/\/persona.qcri.org\/blog\/the-persona-value-pyramid-understanding-the-three-tiered-relationship\/\">personas&#8217; value<\/a> &#8212; designers might perceive them useful and gain empathetic understandings from them, but this does not automatically mean benefits for the end-user. Therefore, measuring persona users&#8217; perceptions has a limitation of not actually measuring the value for end-users.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wan to share an observation about first- and second-order utility of personas. What do these terms mean? first-order utility: personas help the designer to understand people (i.e., they help the designer do their job better) second-order utility: the benefit to the users via the use of personas (e.g., new features, better usability) These two can [&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":[7,2],"tags":[544],"class_list":["post-1644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-persona-research","category-personas","tag-design-personas"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>First- and second-order utility 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\/first-and-second-order-utility-of-personas\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"First- and second-order utility of personas &#8211; The Persona Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Wan to share an observation about first- and second-order utility of personas. What do these terms mean? first-order utility: personas help the designer to understand people (i.e., they help the designer do their job better) second-order utility: the benefit to the users via the use of personas (e.g., new features, better usability) These two can [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/persona.qcri.org\/blog\/first-and-second-order-utility-of-personas\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Persona Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-10-10T13:49:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-11-02T13:20:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/persona.qcri.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/APG-2020.png?fit=490%2C300&ssl=1\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"490\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"300\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Joni Salminen\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@jonintweet\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Joni Salminen\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/persona.qcri.org\/blog\/first-and-second-order-utility-of-personas\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/persona.qcri.org\/blog\/first-and-second-order-utility-of-personas\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Joni Salminen\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/persona.qcri.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a27247804c613302571069953ae51336\"},\"headline\":\"First- and second-order utility of personas\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-10-10T13:49:16+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-11-02T13:20:36+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/persona.qcri.org\/blog\/first-and-second-order-utility-of-personas\/\"},\"wordCount\":179,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/persona.qcri.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"design personas\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Persona Research\",\"Personas\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/persona.qcri.org\/blog\/first-and-second-order-utility-of-personas\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/persona.qcri.org\/blog\/first-and-second-order-utility-of-personas\/\",\"name\":\"First- and second-order utility of personas &#8211; 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