More authenticity, less fixed role patterns
Posted: Tue Dec 17, 2024 6:43 am
Whatever you do, the effect of a more diverse palette of personas is that there is greater variation. This is variation that actively breaks stereotypes instead of confirming them. You then use personas in a different way than normal. Instead of rapid recognition by employees (what psychologist Daniel Kahneman calls system 1 of perception about quick, automatic judgments) you shift to system 2: slower and more conscious perception. You make employees and people who work with personas think about their customer groups and how they are represented. And perhaps they think about stereotypes and prejudices in general.
Beware of 'difference blindness'
To that end, it is good to at least name differences, to prevent 'difference blindness' from leading to less awareness. That means, philosopher Michael S. Merry and political scientist Farid Boussaid explain , that instead of taking those differences into account and understanding how they work to the advantage or disadvantage of individuals, we would rather not pay too much attention to those differences.
This can lead to differences that matter being ignored. Distinctions that can (or even should) be made on the basis of these differences are then not acknowledged. However well-intentioned this may be, the authors argue, it remains necessary to acknowledge differences : 'Certainly in a context in which a certain majority determines the standards that others must adhere to, vigilance is required to ensure that treatment based on the principle of equality remains intact.'
Personas are always a simplification of real life. So we shouldn't want to recreate complete people. At the same time, we shouldn't build cardboard figures that confirm stereotypes. Or use a photo of someone with a different ethnicity just to appear diverse. Because then we run the risk of portraying groups of people as one-dimensional. Every person is more than just a single identity . No, as advocates of personas, we want to convince people that it's about a specific relationship between the customer and the organization.
At the same time, it still applies: avoid personas uae telegram data that center around an ethnicity. Race or ethnicity, as we have already shown, is rarely a good idea for a profile or persona: you run the risk of recreating existing views or confirming prejudices. Moreover, the conclusion is very often: that is not what it is about . The persona tells a specific story. You choose a perspective that is valuable for the organization, or for the problem you are trying to solve.
The key lesson is that a persona represents a story, not differences per se.
The most important lesson is that a persona stands for that story, and not for an ethnicity or other differences. Only if that has an influence on the story, that is to say on experience, on life-world, and perhaps on attitude and behavior, then it is relevant to mention ethnicity. Or, as Merry and Boussaid write: ' It is good to embrace diversity, but not by ignoring differences, but precisely by being able to name the differences where they matter. '
In this way, you can use diversity in all sorts of ways in your personas, precisely to break through fixed role patterns. By deviating just a little from the data from your customer base, and by sometimes adjusting a view just a little. In this way, you ensure that personas get a different function, and can contribute to an organization that is more sensitive to diversity.
Beware of 'difference blindness'
To that end, it is good to at least name differences, to prevent 'difference blindness' from leading to less awareness. That means, philosopher Michael S. Merry and political scientist Farid Boussaid explain , that instead of taking those differences into account and understanding how they work to the advantage or disadvantage of individuals, we would rather not pay too much attention to those differences.
This can lead to differences that matter being ignored. Distinctions that can (or even should) be made on the basis of these differences are then not acknowledged. However well-intentioned this may be, the authors argue, it remains necessary to acknowledge differences : 'Certainly in a context in which a certain majority determines the standards that others must adhere to, vigilance is required to ensure that treatment based on the principle of equality remains intact.'
Personas are always a simplification of real life. So we shouldn't want to recreate complete people. At the same time, we shouldn't build cardboard figures that confirm stereotypes. Or use a photo of someone with a different ethnicity just to appear diverse. Because then we run the risk of portraying groups of people as one-dimensional. Every person is more than just a single identity . No, as advocates of personas, we want to convince people that it's about a specific relationship between the customer and the organization.
At the same time, it still applies: avoid personas uae telegram data that center around an ethnicity. Race or ethnicity, as we have already shown, is rarely a good idea for a profile or persona: you run the risk of recreating existing views or confirming prejudices. Moreover, the conclusion is very often: that is not what it is about . The persona tells a specific story. You choose a perspective that is valuable for the organization, or for the problem you are trying to solve.
The key lesson is that a persona represents a story, not differences per se.
The most important lesson is that a persona stands for that story, and not for an ethnicity or other differences. Only if that has an influence on the story, that is to say on experience, on life-world, and perhaps on attitude and behavior, then it is relevant to mention ethnicity. Or, as Merry and Boussaid write: ' It is good to embrace diversity, but not by ignoring differences, but precisely by being able to name the differences where they matter. '
In this way, you can use diversity in all sorts of ways in your personas, precisely to break through fixed role patterns. By deviating just a little from the data from your customer base, and by sometimes adjusting a view just a little. In this way, you ensure that personas get a different function, and can contribute to an organization that is more sensitive to diversity.