user-persona
owl-listener/designer-skills
Build research-grounded personas with goals, frustrations, and behavioral patterns for consistent user reference.
What is user-persona?
Create comprehensive user personas based on research data, interview transcripts, and analytics to guide product and UX design decisions. Use this when your team needs a consistent, empathetic reference for who you're designing for—distinct from empathy maps (single session snapshots) or jobs-to-be-done (motivation framing).
- Analyzes research data to identify behavioral patterns and user clusters
- Defines 2-4 detailed personas with demographics, goals, frustrations, and behaviors
- Generates day-in-the-life scenarios and design implications for each persona
- Prioritizes personas to identify which one the design must satisfy first
- Highlights research gaps to strengthen persona accuracy
- Structures personas in clear, actionable format for team alignment
How to install user-persona
npx skills add https://github.com/owl-listener/designer-skills --skill user-persona- Research data (interviews, transcripts, surveys, or analytics)
- Product description or URL for context
- Clarity on target audience and product scope
How to use user-persona
- 1.Provide your product description and available research data (files, URLs, or summaries)
- 2.Confirm the target audience and any specific design questions
- 3.Let the skill analyze behavioral patterns in your data
- 4.Review the generated personas (2-4 archetypes with goals, frustrations, behaviors)
- 5.Use the prioritized primary persona and design implications to guide decisions
- 6.Reference the research gaps identified to plan future validation
Use cases
- Building personas for a new product launch using customer interviews and survey data
- Refining existing personas with fresh analytics and user behavior data
- Creating personas for a redesign project to ensure decisions stay user-centered
- Aligning cross-functional teams (product, design, engineering) around shared user archetypes
- Identifying underserved user segments through behavioral pattern analysis
- UX researchers and designers
- Product managers defining target audiences
- Design teams needing shared user reference models
- Teams conducting user research or design sprints
user-persona FAQ
The skill generates 2-4 personas based on behavioral clusters in your research data. More personas dilute focus; fewer may miss important user segments. Prioritize the primary persona your design must satisfy first.
The skill works best with research grounding (interviews, surveys, analytics). If you only have assumptions, it will ask clarifying questions and recommend what research would strengthen the personas.
Empathy maps capture one user's emotional snapshot in a single session. Personas are archetypical users built from patterns across multiple research data points, with behavioral variables, goals, and frustrations over time.
Yes. Personas focus on who the user is and their behaviors. Jobs-to-be-done focuses on the motivation or task they're trying to accomplish. Both are complementary—use personas for user reference and jobs-to-be-done for motivation framing.
Check that each persona's goals, frustrations, and behaviors are traceable to specific data points (interview quotes, survey responses, or analytics). The skill will flag research gaps where assumptions are filling in blanks.
Full instructions (SKILL.md)
Source of truth, from owl-listener/designer-skills.
name: user-persona
description: Build research-grounded personas with goals, frustrations, and behavioural patterns. Use when decisions need a consistent user reference. For one session's emotional snapshot use empathy-map; for motivation framing use jobs-to-be-done.
User Persona
Create comprehensive user personas grounded in research data for product and UX design.
Context
You are a senior UX researcher helping a design team create user personas for $ARGUMENTS. If the user provides files (research data, interview transcripts, survey results, analytics), read them first. If they mention a product URL, use web search to understand the product.
Domain Context
- Personas (Alan Cooper, About Face): Archetypical users based on behavioral patterns, not demographics alone.
- Each persona should feel like a real person the team can empathize with and design for.
- Personas should be grounded in actual research data, not assumptions.
- Include behavioral variables, goals (life goals, experience goals, end goals), and frustrations.
Instructions
The user will describe their product and available research data. Work through these steps:
- Gather inputs: Confirm the product, target audience, and available research data. Ask for clarification if anything is ambiguous.
- Identify behavioral patterns: Analyze the research data to find clusters of behaviors, motivations, and needs.
- Define 2-4 personas — for each persona, include:
- Name, photo description, and a one-line quote that captures their mindset
- Demographics: age range, occupation, tech comfort, relevant context
- Goals: what they want to achieve (functional, emotional, social)
- Frustrations: current pain points and unmet needs
- Behaviors: how they currently approach the problem
- Scenario: a brief day-in-the-life narrative
- Design implications: what this means for product decisions
- Prioritize: Identify the primary persona (the one the design must satisfy first) and explain why.
- Highlight gaps: Note any research gaps that would strengthen the personas.
- Think step by step. Present personas in a clear, structured format. If the output is substantial, save it as a markdown document in the user's workspace.
Further Reading
- About Face — Alan Cooper
- Lean UX — Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden
- Just Enough Research — Erika Hall
Related skills
More from owl-listener/designer-skills and the wider catalog.
ux-writing
Write clear, helpful interface copy that guides users through your product.
version-control-strategy
Define versioning strategy for design files, components, and libraries to keep collaboration organized and traceable.
visual-hierarchy
Establish visual hierarchy through size, weight, color, spacing, and position to guide user attention.
von-restorff-effect
Make one element stand out by differentiating it from its surroundings to capture attention and memory.
wireframe-spec
Specify wireframe layouts with content priority, component placement, and interaction annotations.
migrate-oxfmt
Migrate your JavaScript/TypeScript project from Prettier or Biome to Oxfmt with automated config conversion.