The Perils of Personas

The Perils of Personas with Allison Robins
A Product Calgary event sponsored by Alberta Innovates

“If you build something for everyone, it works for no one.” - Brian Alvey

Product Managers are responsible for making informed decisions about who their customers are, what they need, and how to best meet those needs.

Personas are a tool that can help PMs in explaining the rationale behind product decisions, focus on the needs of their most important customer groups, and prioritize the features that matter.

But, depending on who you talk to, personas are both revered and reviled.

Join Allison Robins (Senior UX Researcher @ Wonolo) to explore why most personas suck and walk through a step-by-step process for how we can rehabilitate them.

You’ll learn:

• How personas have the potential to make or break your product
• Why some “best practices” may not be “best” after all
• How to build evidenced-based personas that are all substance and no fluff

About the Speaker

Allison Robins’

career has taken the scenic route. She’s been a public servant, a business process consultant, a nationally award-winning public policy scholar, and a published researcher. On the surface, these roles may seem unalike, but her desire to ask “why?” is what led her to all of them. More recently, she served as Director of User Research at Evans Hunt, where her clients included Glassdoor, JD Power, and Travel Alberta. Currently, she asks questions and provides strategic, actionable insights full-time as a Senior UX Researcher at Wonolo - a Sequoia-backed on-demand staffing platform.