Encouraging clients to slow down and think about their intended audiences before a single word of copy gets written, video produced, social posted, or webpage built might be the hardest part of UX design work.  They know their audiences well—sometimes better than the audiences know themselves—but that inherent knowledge can get clouded by the pressure of goals, agendas, and schedules.   Creating user personae helps ground content creators before the act of creation begins: coming face to face with a person, even a fictitious one, helps us get out of our own heads and remember that the audience has needs, desires, and goals of their own that must be met if they are going to engage with a message. 

The personae you see below are examples I wrote for the counseling center at The University of Alabama in Huntsville.  Prior to redesigning their website, I met with them to learn about their problems, their goals, and their target audiences.  These personae became instrumental in the testing phase.  You can read the story of their website’s A/B testing  phase here.