User Persona
Turn interview transcripts, surveys, or analytics into two to four research-backed personas your agent can reference for design tradeoffs.
Overview
User Persona is an agent skill most often used in Idea (also Validate scope) that synthesizes research into 2–4 behavioral persona profiles for design decisions.
Install
npx skills add https://github.com/owl-listener/designer-skills --skill user-personaWhat is this skill?
- Grounds personas in behavioral clusters per Alan Cooper / About Face—not demographics alone
- Produces 2–4 personas with goals (life, experience, end), frustrations, and empathic narrative detail
- Ingests research files, transcripts, surveys, or product URLs via search for context
- Stepwise flow: confirm inputs, pattern discovery, then persona definition with clarifying questions
- Designed for teams that need a shared “real person” anchor during feature debates
- 2–4 personas per engagement
- Behavioral clustering step before persona authoring
Adoption & trust: 561 installs on skills.sh; 1.5k GitHub stars; 2/3 security scanners passed (skills.sh audits).
What problem does it solve?
You have scattered user research but no shared, evidence-based personas to steer UX and feature choices.
Who is it for?
Indie products with some qualitative or quantitative user data who need Cooper-style personas without a dedicated research org.
Skip if: Greenfield ideas with zero research where personas would be pure fiction, unless you explicitly label them as provisional hypotheses.
When should I use this skill?
Create refined user personas from research data with demographics, goals, frustrations, and behavioral patterns when synthesizing user research into actionable persona profiles for design decisions.
What do I get? / Deliverables
You get two to four research-grounded persona documents with goals and frustrations that teams and agents can cite during design and scoping conversations.
- 2–4 full persona profiles with goals and frustrations
- Behavioral pattern summary underpinning each archetype
Recommended Skills
Journey fit
Spans multiple journey phases - primary shelf plus alternate fits below.
Persona synthesis starts in Idea when you define who you serve, before scope and UI details harden. Audience is the canonical shelf—personas encode behavioral segments, goals, and frustrations for a target market.
Where it fits
Cluster interview themes into three personas before writing positioning for a niche B2B tool.
Combine analytics cohorts and support tickets into behavioral patterns for a mobile app.
Cut v1 features that do not serve any primary persona end goals.
Reference persona frustrations when choosing default dashboard density and terminology.
How it compares
Use instead of generic marketing avatars built only from age, job title, and invented quotes.
Common Questions / FAQ
Who is user-persona for?
Solo founders and UX-minded builders synthesizing interviews, surveys, or analytics into personas for product and interface decisions.
When should I use user-persona?
Use it in Idea while defining audience; reuse in Validate when scoping an MVP to check features against persona goals and frustrations.
Is user-persona safe to install?
You may upload sensitive research files; review the Security Audits panel on this Prism page and handle PII according to your policies.
SKILL.md
READMESKILL.md - User Persona
# User Persona Create comprehensive user personas grounded in research data for product and UX design. ## Context You are a senior UX researcher helping a design team create user personas for $ARGUMENTS. If the user provides files (research data, interview transcripts, survey results, analytics), read them first. If they mention a product URL, use web search to understand the product. ## Domain Context - Personas (Alan Cooper, About Face): Archetypical users based on behavioral patterns, not demographics alone. - Each persona should feel like a real person the team can empathize with and design for. - Personas should be grounded in actual research data, not assumptions. - Include behavioral variables, goals (life goals, experience goals, end goals), and frustrations. ## Instructions The user will describe their product and available research data. Work through these steps: 1. **Gather inputs**: Confirm the product, target audience, and available research data. Ask for clarification if anything is ambiguous. 2. **Identify behavioral patterns**: Analyze the research data to find clusters of behaviors, motivations, and needs. 3. **Define 2-4 personas** — for each persona, include: - Name, photo description, and a one-line quote that captures their mindset - Demographics: age range, occupation, tech comfort, relevant context - Goals: what they want to achieve (functional, emotional, social) - Frustrations: current pain points and unmet needs - Behaviors: how they currently approach the problem - Scenario: a brief day-in-the-life narrative - Design implications: what this means for product decisions 4. **Prioritize**: Identify the primary persona (the one the design must satisfy first) and explain why. 5. **Highlight gaps**: Note any research gaps that would strengthen the personas. 6. Think step by step. Present personas in a clear, structured format. If the output is substantial, save it as a markdown document in the user's workspace. ## Further Reading - About Face — Alan Cooper - Lean UX — Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden - Just Enough Research — Erika Hall