Research Note

Why Personas Should Be Evidence-Based Demand Clusters

Audience

Strategists, designers, HR

Core question

What separates a useful persona from a fictional one?

Thesis

Personas are not fictional user types; they are evidence-based demand clusters with spatial consequences. 'Meet Sarah' imports stereotype; a measured cluster compresses real variance into designable structure.

Suggested structure
  1. The marketing persona's failure modes in workplace use
  2. Deriving clusters from measured demand
  3. The validity tests: coherence, distinction, coverage
  4. Spatial consequences or decoration
Research sources
  • Segmentation methodology
  • Cluster validity literature
Workplaced relation

None

Related methods
Full article body — in development.