User Personas & Empathy Maps
From Research Notes to Real People
After a round of interviews you have pages of notes, quotes and observations. On their own they are hard to use. Personas and empathy maps turn that raw research into something the whole team can picture and design for.
What is a Persona?
A persona is a fictional but research-based profile of a key user type. It gives the team a shared answer to "who are we designing for?"
A useful persona includes:
- Name, photo and short bio. Make it feel like a person, not a segment.
- Context. Where they live, what device they use, how reliable their data connection is.
- Goals. What they are trying to achieve.
- Frustrations. What gets in the way today.
- Behaviours. How they currently solve the problem.
- A quote that captures their attitude, ideally paraphrased from a real interview.
Example: Mama Chioma, the market trader
"I don't have time to type long things. Customers are shouting for me."
- 46, sells provisions in Ariaria Market, Aba
- Uses a mid-range Android phone with 32 GB storage, often low on data
- Goal: know who owes her money at the end of each day
- Frustration: her paper notebook gets wet and customers dispute the amounts
- Behaviour: uses WhatsApp voice notes more than typing
Notice how specific this is. "Small business owners aged 25 to 55" helps no one. Mama Chioma tells you to design for one-handed use, low data, voice input and offline mode.
Nigerian and Global Context Matters
Personas built in London or San Francisco often assume fast Wi-Fi, an iPhone and a credit card. In Nigeria and much of Africa you must also consider:
- Connectivity: 3G or patchy 4G, expensive data bundles, frequent offline moments
- Devices: mid-range Android phones with limited storage, so large app downloads get deleted
- Payments: bank transfers, USSD, POS agents and mobile money matter as much as cards
- Language: English, Pidgin, Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa, often mixed in one conversation
- Trust: fear of scams makes people cautious with new apps that ask for money
A global product still needs global personas. Paystack's early personas included Lagos developers and small merchants, but also international businesses selling into Africa.
What is an Empathy Map?
An empathy map is a quick, visual way to capture what you learned about one user or persona. It has four quadrants:
| Quadrant | Question | Example (Mama Chioma) |
|---|---|---|
| Says | What do they say out loud? | "Customers always argue about what they owe." |
| Thinks | What might they think but not say? | "If I use an app, will my money disappear?" |
| Does | What do they actually do? | Writes debts in a notebook, sends voice notes |
| Feels | What emotions come up? | Stressed at closing time, proud of her loyal customers |
The gaps between Says and Does are gold. People often say they want one thing and do another. That tension is where design opportunities hide.
Common Persona Mistakes
- Inventing personas without research. They become a mirror of the team's assumptions.
- Too many personas. Aim for two to four primary ones.
- Demographics only. Age and gender rarely drive design decisions. Goals, context and behaviours do.
- Making and forgetting them. Pin them to the wall (or the Figma cover page) and refer to them in every review.
Try It in the Lab
Use the persona builder on the right. Start from a template or build your own, then fill in the empathy map. The quality check scores your persona against the checklist above and tells you what is missing.
Try it yourself
Key Takeaways
- A persona is a fictional but research-based profile that gives the team a shared picture of who they are designing for.
- Goals, frustrations, behaviours and context (device, data, payments, language) matter far more than demographics.
- Nigerian and African personas must consider patchy connectivity, budget Android devices, USSD, POS agents and trust concerns.
- An empathy map captures what a user Says, Thinks, Does and Feels. The gaps between them reveal design opportunities.
- Keep two to four primary personas and use them in every design review, not just at the start of a project.
Quick Quiz
1.Which persona detail is MOST useful for making design decisions?
2.In an empathy map, why are differences between the 'Says' and 'Does' quadrants valuable?
3.What is the biggest risk of creating personas without doing user research first?
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