Short answer
When creating personas, actively seek out and integrate the needs of underrepresented user groups, such as individuals with disabilities, to ensure truly user-centered design.
- Field
- User-Centred Design
- Source
- Information and Software Technology (2024)
- Method
- Mixed-methods research (interviews and survey)
- Sample
- 230 (26 interviewees + 203 survey respondents)
- Evidence
- Moderate effect
While personas are widely used in software development to represent end-users, their practical application is inconsistent, and they frequently fail to incorporate the needs of diverse user groups, such as individuals with disabilities. This user-centred design research insight is drawn from a 2024 study published in Information and Software Technology. Using Mixed-methods research (interviews and survey) with 230 (26 interviewees + 203 survey respondents), researchers explored how this design variable affects real-world outcomes. The key design takeaway: When creating personas, actively seek out and integrate the needs of underrepresented user groups, such as individuals with disabilities, to ensure truly user-centered design.
Persona adoption in software development is inconsistent, often neglecting user diversity.
While personas are widely used in software development to represent end-users, their practical application is inconsistent, and they frequently fail to incorporate the needs of diverse user groups, such as individuals with disabilities.
Information and Software Technology · 2024
Key Findings
- 01Persona usage varies significantly across different software projects and organizations.
- 02Practitioners face numerous challenges when creating and utilizing personas.
- 03The needs of users with disabilities are often not considered in persona development, despite the perceived importance of personas for understanding user needs.
Application
Design takeaway
When creating personas, actively seek out and integrate the needs of underrepresented user groups, such as individuals with disabilities, to ensure truly user-centered design.
How to apply
During the persona development phase of a design project, explicitly dedicate time to research and incorporate the requirements and challenges faced by users with disabilities.
Project actions
- 01When creating personas for your design project, go beyond basic demographics and consider a wider range of user characteristics and needs.
- 02Actively seek out information about users with disabilities relevant to your product and integrate these insights into your personas.
Method & Evidence
Variables
Strengths & Limitations
Strengths
- +Combines qualitative (interviews) and quantitative (survey) data for a comprehensive view.
- +Investigates a practical and widely used design tool (personas) in its real-world application.
Limitations
The number of participants in the interviews was relatively small, and the survey responses are self-reported, which might not perfectly reflect actual practices.
Reliability & validity
The study's validity is strengthened by the mixed-methods approach, capturing both breadth (survey) and depth (interviews). Reliability could be assessed by replicating the survey across different software development contexts.
Think critically
If personas are meant to represent users, why do practitioners so often fail to include the needs of users with disabilities? What systemic issues in the design process might contribute to this oversight?
Design Principles
"Ensure personas represent a diverse user base, actively including marginalized or often-overlooked user needs."
This research highlights a critical gap between the intended purpose of personas—to foster user empathy—and their actual implementation. Designers and developers must critically evaluate their persona creation and usage processes to ensure they genuinely represent a broad spectrum of users and their unique needs, rather than relying on superficial or incomplete representations.
What This Means for Your Design
Lots of people use 'personas' (like fictional user profiles) in software design, but they don't always do a good job. Sometimes, they forget to think about users with disabilities, which is a big problem for making things usable for everyone.
How to use in your project
- 1.Reference this study when discussing the limitations of generic persona creation and the importance of inclusive user representation in your design project's research section.
Add to My Project
Quick Cite
Paragraph starter
Research indicates that while personas are a common tool in requirements engineering, their practical application often falls short, particularly in representing diverse user needs such as those of individuals with disabilities (Wang et al., 2024). This highlights the importance of moving beyond superficial persona creation to actively integrate insights from underrepresented user groups to ensure truly inclusive design outcomes.
Source
Information and Software Technology
Who uses personas in requirements engineering: The practitioners’ perspective
journal · 2024
View sourceQuestions About This Research
- What does the research say about persona adoption in software development is inconsistent, often neglecting user diversity?
- When creating personas, actively seek out and integrate the needs of underrepresented user groups, such as individuals with disabilities, to ensure truly user-centered design. Evidence: Information and Software Technology (2024).
- Why does "Persona adoption in software development is inconsistent, often neglecting user diversity." matter for design?
- This research highlights a critical gap between the intended purpose of personas—to foster user empathy—and their actual implementation. Designers and developers must critically evaluate their persona creation and usage processes to ensure they genuinely represent a broad spectrum of users and their unique needs, rather than relying on superficial or incomplete representations.
- How can designers apply this research?
- When creating personas, actively seek out and integrate the needs of underrepresented user groups, such as individuals with disabilities, to ensure truly user-centered design.
- What were the main findings?
- Persona usage varies significantly across different software projects and organizations.. Practitioners face numerous challenges when creating and utilizing personas.. The needs of users with disabilities are often not considered in persona development, despite the perceived importance of personas for understanding user needs.
- What research method was used?
- Mixed-methods research (interviews and survey) with 230 (26 interviewees + 203 survey respondents).
- How strong is the evidence?
- Evidence strength is rated Moderate effect, based on a 2024 journal from Information and Software Technology.
- What should I do differently in my next project?
- During the persona development phase of a design project, explicitly dedicate time to research and incorporate the requirements and challenges faced by users with disabilities.
- What are the limitations?
- The study's findings may be influenced by the specific IT companies and project types included in the sample, potentially limiting generalizability to all software development contexts. Self-reported data from surveys can also be subject to bias.