Dynamic Personas
Dynamic Personas is a persona format that describes how a person's behaviour could change through a series of stages, instead of fixing them in a single snapshot. The team maps what helps and what hinders the move from each stage to the next and uses that map to find interventions that would help people progress. The tool is published by Service Design Tools, curated by the studio oblo, and builds on classic personas and human archetypes.
Facilitation script
- 1
Introduce the format and review the research on current behaviour. Agree which user group the map describes.
10 min - 2
Agree the desired end state and the stages in between, and write a short behavioural description for each.
20 min - 3
Silent writing, then posting: enablers for each transition, marked as evidence or assumption.
15 min - 4
Silent writing, then posting: blockers for each transition, marked the same way.
15 min - 5
Read the map together and mark the transitions where people are most likely to stall.
10 min - 6
Generate interventions for the marked transitions, select the most promising and agree what needs research or testing next.
20 min
Tips
Define each stage by observable behaviour, not attitude, so the team can tell which stage a real person is in.
Mark every enabler and blocker as evidence or assumption; the assumptions are your research agenda.
Spend most of the time on the transitions, since that is where the design work will happen, and resist polishing the stage descriptions.
Expect that different user groups have different blockers at the same transition and split the map if they do.
Common pitfalls
Defining stages by the company's sales funnel and not by what the person does, which yields a marketing pipeline and hides the user's real obstacles
Assuming everyone moves forward in a straight line, so relapse and people who stay content at an early stage are left out of the design
Filling in enablers and blockers from opinion without marking them as assumptions, so guesses are later treated as findings
Stopping when the map is complete and not deriving interventions, which leaves the team with a diagram and no design direction
Blending very different user groups into one persona, so blockers that apply to only one group dilute the picture for all
Variations
Add stages to an existing static persona to give it a time dimension without starting again. Run it with subject experts and frontline staff in the room, since they know the blockers best. For a short version, map only the one transition where most people currently drop out. Remotely, use a horizontal swimlane on a digital whiteboard with one colour each for stage notes, enablers and blockers. Not every journey is forward only, so add a note where people commonly fall back to an earlier stage.
Where it fits
When to use it
The goal of the project is for people to change what they do over time, such as adopting a habit, a product or a new way of working
Existing personas describe who the users are but give no help with how to move them from first contact to regular use
Users start well and then stall or drop out, and the team needs to find where and why
Experts and stakeholders hold scattered knowledge about barriers that needs to be put into one picture
You need a structured source of intervention ideas before an ideation session
When not to use it
You do not yet know who your users are; start with Persona Development and research interviews
You want to improve the steps and touchpoints of one service interaction; a User Journey Map fits better, since Dynamic Personas track change in behaviour and not steps in a process
No change in behaviour is intended and the team only needs a shared picture of what users think and feel; use an Empathy Map
There is one specific change with clear forces for and against; a Force Field Analysis is quicker
There is no research on current behaviour, in which case the stages and blockers will be invented and the interventions aimed at the wrong place
Related methods
Frequently asked questions
What is Dynamic Personas?▾
Dynamic Personas is a way of describing users that shows how their behaviour could develop through stages towards a desired end state. For each step between stages the team lists what enables people to move on and what blocks them. The resulting behaviour map points to where a design intervention would help most. The tool is published by Service Design Tools.
How is a dynamic persona different from a regular persona?▾
A regular persona is a snapshot: who the person is, what they want and what frustrates them at one point in time. A dynamic persona adds movement by describing several stages of behaviour and the conditions for getting from one to the next. The two work together, and a static persona is a good starting point.
How is it different from a user journey map?▾
A journey map follows a person through the steps of using a service, often within hours or days. A dynamic persona follows a change in the person's behaviour, which may take months, and is not tied to specific touchpoints. Use the journey map to fix an interaction and the dynamic persona to design for adoption or habit change.
How many stages should a dynamic persona have?▾
Three to five usually works. Fewer stages hide where people get stuck, and more make the transitions too fine to tell apart. Each stage should be recognisable from what the person does.
Who should be in the room?▾
A small team that includes the people who did the user research, subject experts for the behaviour in question and stakeholders who can act on the interventions. Frontline staff are valuable because they see the blockers daily.
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Try it freeMethod descriptions on Workshop Weaver are original content written by our team, based on established facilitation practices. This method was inspired by work from Service Design Tools (oblo).