Celebrities are immediately recognizable and in some cases, the majority of the people using the persona may have a good idea of “who” that person is. So it would make sense to consider using them for personas, however in most cases this is a poor choice.
I’ll use Matt LeBlanc as an example. Matt played Joey Tribbiani on the NBC television sitcom “Friends” (and other shows). The members of your team who are knowledgeable about Matt may or may not agree with his politics or religious beliefs. They may feel that his most recent TV show is a bad idea.
Matt and his character Joey are often difficult to separate because he played the character for so long. The team may confuse Matt with the TV character and be unsure if the user are all as dim-witted as his character on TV (which may be ok). If Matt gets himself in the news for poor choices in real-life, that could potentially distract from the project.
All of these issues can change the teams’ perception of the persona (for better or worse). Is that ok?
The purpose of a persona is to provide a shared understanding of whom the team is designing for. If team members get different information – for example one seeing an article on the internet about Matt’s recent escapade – that changes their understanding of the persona and may change the way they design the product. If different people on the team are designing for different users (even relatively small differences), it can become a large problem.
I avoid using images of recognizable people in personas. That includes the actual product users that the team knows, because my priority is to leave any external baggage out of the persona. Personas need to be fresh and focused.
Finding appropriate images for Personas is often a daunting process. They must be believable. Not too attractive as to distract from their purpose. They need to look like a “real” person, someone who looks like they would be natural in the situation. Professional photographers take beautiful photos – too beautiful. Getting stock art reduced the feeling that the persona is real.
Finding Great Persona Images
I recommend using a site like Flickr that has photos of people who are taken by amateur photographers. On Flickr I use the Advanced Search feature. When you go to Flickr click on the Search feature, a new Search section will be displayed. Select the Advanced Search link.
On the Advanced Search page, towards the bottom is the Creative Commons option. When the photographer selects a Creative Commons-license that means they are giving permission for other people to use their images.
I also usually select the “commercial” feature despite the fact that personas are only used internally. What resources do you use?
