For those who use personas... Do you give them a name, gender, and age?
How dependent (significant influence) is the feature or use case to the gender or age (range)? EX: Advertising or App for apparel commerce may have elements customized for gender and age (hopefully not too drastic). Plus you may have “primary and secondary personas” (where gender or age may be a distinguishing element between the two). EX: App for Parents and kids etc. I have seen it go either way (prefer option 2): 1. Formal: where gender and age was highlighted explicitly. 2. Informal: Gender and age wasn’t captured separately. However giving a name and a brief reead of the persona’s life (day in the life of), challenges/needs etc. provided hints of their potential age range and gender. For the products I worked on: Have used those attributes for B2C and B2B persona/scenario work. Gender wasn’t a factor in designing or influencing the feature, but that may be due to the nature of the products.
It depends. Be careful around assumptions people make immediately they see your personas (name, age, illustration or photos used, etc). Even for research data driven personas, it is a tricky balance.
No. I always thought that was hokey and didn’t add much value. But I’m a B2B Guy. I could see it making more sense in B2C.
I agree. It will have a lot of relevance in a b2c setup. A b2b is more process driven and hence roles rather than gender will have an impact. However age might be a factor to consider in b2b as it might influence their behaviour.