Product management glossary
User persona
Definition: A user persona is a short profile of a typical user, describing their goals, responsibilities, frustrations and context, used to guide product decisions.
Good personas are based on research, not guesswork, and are specific enough to settle arguments: 'would this help Priya, the operations lead?' They keep the team building for real people rather than for an average user who does not exist.
Many teams keep a small set of primary personas and refer to them in prioritization and messaging.