Are you in the business of creating personas or surveys?
Man, oh, man, is there some bad stuff out there. The sexism, the racism, the ageism, the ableism.
*Your* company’s not doing any of that, of course. … But you’ve seen it around town.
If understanding user needs leads us to better insights, then these demographics-led personas and surveys need to get kicked to the curb.
By choosing a gender, age, race, sexual orientation and ability for our personas (often defaulting to perceived societal norms), we narrow our field of vision in a way that’s not useful, can be hurtful to other team members and doesn’t serve our companies or our customers.
Re: surveys, I know, I know, there are questions we neeeeeed. Fine. But at least let’s ask them like it’s not 1999.
