This is the story of a senior UX researcher who builds the perfect persona to win over a stubborn steering committee. He’s warm. He’s helpful. He remembers your kid’s name. And a few weeks later, he starts leaving feedback in Slack. |
What happens when your persona starts getting more buy-in than you do?
A persona is a lie. A well-meaning lie, but a lie nevertheless.
You know it. I know it. We all agree to pretend anyway, because the lie is useful. It gets people to care.
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But what happens when the lie starts working a little too well? When the persona you invented gets more buy-in than you ever did?
Dana Cole is a senior UX researcher with fifteen years of airtight, beautifully sourced research that nobody reads. When her VP asks for a persona that will finally make the steering committee feel something, she builds Doug Whitaker.
Doug is a sales ops director from Naperville. He has a golden retriever named Biscuit. He remembers your kid’s name and gets your coffee order right without being asked.
And Dana made up almost every word of him.
A few weeks after Doug goes up on the wall, an account called D. Whitaker shows up in the design Slack channel with notes on the onboarding flow.
That’s all I’ll say. 👻
Special thanks to our cast of characters:
Happy Halloween,
Jeremy
P.S. Next Wednesday, November 4, I’m running a live, hands-on workshop on the UX Uncertainty Principle and VUCA with Julia Ysabela Fernandez. If you want to dig into how designers can work through volatility and ambiguity without losing their footing, come hang out. https://luma.com/gb90so4y
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You iterated, pivoted, circle-backed, and made it out of Q4 (barely).
You’ve earned a Merit-ish Badge!
Choose from four sets:
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• Field Notes & Frayed Nerves
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They don't teach this stuff in school
Learn the things they left off the syllabus.
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