Personas Have Lost Their Way
Human-Centred Design (HCD) has driven marketing and innovation for decades, but recent critiques of its cornerstone practice, Design Thinking, are challenging how useful its key tools – like personas – truly are.
The intention of a persona is admirable – if nothing else it’s a relatively straight-forward way to bring ‘people’ into the conversation by crystalising the knowledge a business or brand has of who they’re creating for.
The problem, as is often the case with simple processes and frameworks – there is a deceptively large amount of hard-work required to use them properly, and this is where Personas have let the side down…
Where Personas Fall Short
Oversimplification of the Human Experience.
Personas, while intended to bring empathy and focus, often flatten human complexity. By reducing people to generalized demographics or fictionalized backstories, they risk reinforcing stereotypes and biases rather than revealing deeper, actionable insights. Worse, over-reliance on personas can replace direct engagement with real people, leading to solutions disconnected from actual needs.
Lack of Connection to Wider Systems
Another major flaw is the failure to consider broader systems shaping people’s lives. Personas often ignore diversity, intersectionality, and external factors—such as social, economic, and cultural forces—that influence behaviour. This narrow focus can lead to solutions that address surface-level symptoms rather than tackling underlying, systemic challenges.
Overly Project-Specific
Personas are often created in isolation, tied to a single project rather than a long-term strategic vision. This results in an endless accumulation of disconnected personas, none of which serve as a shared foundation across the business. Without continuity, personas become disposable tools rather than evolving assets, limiting their ability to drive cumulative insight and long-term impact.
A Better Way to Imagine the People We Create For
So, how should brands and businesses use personas more effectively?
People Exist at Different Levels in a Business
Firstly, we need to appreciate that brands and businesses inevitably think about people at different levels.
- At a strategic level it’s about imagining people as the market a brand or business can address, the people they seek to serve, and the people who will have an affinity and shared sense of purpose with the brand. This is typically how we imagine people when working on category and brand positioning.
- At a tactical level it’s about imagining people as audiences a brand or business can engage, groups they can connect with, and fans they can build relationships with. This is typically how we imagine people when working on comms and audience engagement.
- At an executional level it’s about imagining people as individuals using a brand or business’ product or service, as customers shopping the offering, or even someone chatting with the brand on social media. This is typically how we imagine people when working on product, service, and experience design.
The Problem: Disconnected Thinking
Here’s the thing, while different types of work require different perspectives on people, businesses are still ultimately studying variations of the same broad customer base – the people they can reach and serve. However, the way people are segmented and prioritized often shifts between levels, and that’s where things can get complicated.
At every level – strategic, tactical, and executional – we examine attitudes, behaviours, needs, desires, and tensions -often using similar qualitative and quantitative research methods. However, the focus, depth, and application of these insights vary. A strategic lens might define broad market segments, a tactical lens might refine audience groups for engagement, and an executional lens might home in on specific user experiences.
This means a form of persona can exist at any level – strategic, tactical, or executional – or even across them. But too often, they are created in silos, leading to fragmentation. The key is ensuring that persona thinking is connected, coherent, and grounded in real insight – so businesses aren’t just collecting personas but using them to drive meaningful action.
But this is much easier said than done, so how can a brand or business approach this to take a more successful and genuinely human-centred approach?
A More Actionable Approach
At 8TH DAY we find it helpful to break up the ways a brand or business can imagine the people they’re creating for into clearly defined categories, where the number of ‘personas’ a business or brand is likely to have increases as you go from the more strategic to the more executional – let’s run through these categories and use a well- known brand as an example – Nike.
| Level | Focus | Nike Example |
|---|---|---|
| Strategic level | Our Market - The total addressable market – everyone who could use our product. | Anyone who could wear athletic apparel, from professional athletes to casual gym-goers to people who just like the style. |
| Our People - The people that feel a strong affinity with the brand, sharing its values and sense of purpose. | People with an inner athlete – who believe in pushing their limits, striving for greatness, and embrace sport as a mindset not just an activity. | |
| Tactical level | Our Audience - Defined, measurable groups that can be segments, tracked, and targeted. | Female athletes, Gen Z sneaker collectors, weekend warriors training for their first marathon |
| Our Fans - Passionate followers who engage deeply, curating, co-creating, and advocating for the brand. | Hardcore Jordan collectors, longtime Nike+ members, and sneakerheads who buy every limited-edition drop and actively promote the brand. | |
| Executional level | Our Users - Individuals engaging with the product, service or retail experience. | Someone using the Nike Training Club app for their morning workout or wearing Vaporflys in a marathon. |
| Our Connections - One-on-one interactions with the brand. | A customer chatting with Nike Support about sizing or a personalized ‘Nike By You’ sneaker order. |
Final Thoughts
At its core, a persona is simply a structured way to represent the people a business is creating for—a tool to make their needs, motivations, and behaviours tangible. Whether framed as a market segment, an audience profile, or a user archetype, the fundamental purpose of a persona is to provide clarity and focus on who we are designing for and why they matter.
But a persona is only as useful as the thinking behind it. No matter which framework or template a business uses, the key is to avoid oversimplification, fragmentation, and isolation. A persona should never be a one- dimensional caricature or a disconnected document sitting in a strategy deck. Instead, it should be a living, evolving representation of real people, deeply connected to business strategy, marketing, and product experience.
For personas to be truly meaningful, they must be built with nuance, consideration, and empathy. This can’t be done solely from behind a desk - it requires direct engagement with the people they represent. Too often, personas rely on second-hand insights, assumptions, or generic data points instead of real interactions. The strongest personas don’t come from abstraction but immersion - spending time with real people, understanding their lives, and continuously refining these insights from the rich and – inevitably – messy realities that make up their humanity.
Rather than treating personas as static artifacts, businesses should ensure they are interconnected, insight- driven, and reflective of the complexity of human behaviour. The goal isn’t just to "have personas" but to use them meaningfully—to guide decisions, inspire creativity, and ultimately make strategy, innovation, and communication more genuinely human-centred.
