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Three profiles in silhouette against a starlit teal sky — the personas at the table
CASE STUDY

Personas: Creating Space
At The Table

Creating the personas was my first mandate at VOSKER&SPYPOINT.

Company
VOSKER / SPYPOINT
Role
CX Designer & Strategy
Years
2023 — 2024

Chapter I

The Problem

What was wrong?

The company did not lack customer knowledge.

It had too many versions of the customer.

Conversations about customers often started from different assumptions.

One customer connected to four different department perspectives: product, marketing, sales, and support.

Each team saw a different part of the customer experience, so every perspective was useful but incomplete.

I needed to connect those perspectives while keeping the differences that mattered.

Chapter II

The Approach

How did I look at it?

Standard Segmentation Categories

These categories describe who people are. They do not always explain why the same product means something different to them.

A woman beside age, location, profession, income, and channel categories

Product Connection

A more human way to see people.

It starts with how they relate to the product.

A woman follows a path toward a glowing product symbol

We did not start with who they were.

We started with how they related to the product.

  • What were they counting on it to do?

  • What made it valuable to them?

  • What did they expect from the experience, and where did that relationship begin to break down?

The useful differences were the ones that could change a decision: what to build, how to communicate it, or how to support the relationship around it.

I used that as a filter for deciding which distinctions belonged in the framework.

Chapter III

From Signals to Focus

What did we decide?

We started with a wide field of evidence.

A team sharing perspectives around a work table.

Team perspectives

Interviews, workshops, internal feedback

Two customers in conversation.

Customer voices

Interviews, surveys, open-ended feedback

Reports showing charts and behavioural data.

Behaviour & data

Usage patterns, journey data, support trends

A mountain landscape with a flag marking a benchmark.

Context & benchmarks

Market research, competitive review, industry shifts

We used three criteria to bring clarity.

We narrowed the field by looking for signals that were:

A bright central star representing significance.

Significant

Big enough to impact users, business, or both.

Overlapping circles representing consistency across sources.

Consistent

Seen across multiple sources, not a one-off.

A forward arrow representing an actionable direction.

Actionable

Something we could influence through design or strategy.

A pattern had to do more than describe a group.

A useful pattern showed a distinct relationship with the product that could change how the company responded.

We applied these checks before deciding how to use each pattern.

  • Appeared across sources
  • Changed expectations or value
  • Could guide a decision

Case Study

How the patterns were used

Some became personas, some informed relationships we wanted to develop, and some did not become personas at all.

  • Profile of a head with a heart inside it.

    Clearly present

    Some personas emerged clearly from the customers already using the product.

  • A faceted diamond.

    Intentionally developed

    Others represented relationships the company wanted to develop more intentionally.

  • A flowing directional arrow pointing outward.

    Outside the framework

    And some patterns did not become personas at all.

Each persona represented a distinct customer relationship. Together, they reflected a deliberate choice about which customers the company wanted to understand and serve more closely.

Chapter IV

Building It Together

How did we build it?

We ran a series of collaborative workshops with the CX team and cross-functional stakeholders to turn the research into a practical persona framework.

The workshops gave stakeholders a way to test the evidence, challenge emerging personas, and shape the framework together.

We did not start from a blank page.

The workshops started with research, not opinions.

We brought a shared evidence base into the room:

  • Customer language

    What people actually said.

  • Recurring patterns

    What appeared across sources.

  • Points of tension

    Where expectations and experience broke apart.

  • Early distinctions

    Where different product relationships were beginning to emerge.

Everyone worked from the same evidence base rather than relying on memory or individual anecdotes.

02

We tested whether each persona held together.

We checked whether the fields described a coherent customer relationship.

We mapped motivations, needs, pain points, and value points, then examined how they related to one another.

We tested whether they supported the same underlying relationship with the product: what the person was trying to achieve, what made the product valuable, what they expected from the experience, and where that relationship began to break down.

Collaboration did not replace the evidence.

It helped us challenge it, refine it, and make it usable.

Three colleagues gathered around a table, studying a glowing laptop together.

Collaboration challenged the work. It did not replace rigor.

Stakeholder input helped test the framework. The research remained the basis for our decisions.

Disagreement exposed weak spots.

It helped us spot missing evidence, separate exceptions from patterns, and revisit assumptions.

Disagreement improved the research. It did not dilute it.

Participation began the adoption process.

Ownership started before the personas were finished.

By testing and refining the framework, stakeholders became familiar with the thinking behind it.

That involvement laid the groundwork for adoption while the personas were still taking shape.

Chapter V

Bringing Personas to Life

How did we make them human?

We turned the validated framework into a set of recognizable persona profiles using names, visual identities, customer language, quotes, and short narratives.

We used names and stories to make each relationship recognizable, while keeping the profiles grounded in the research.

01

The relationship came first. The character came second.

We defined the product relationship before choosing the personal details that would represent it.

Before adding a name, face, or story, we defined the relationship each persona represented: the person’s goals, constraints, pains, expectations, and the deeper motivation that made the product matter to them at all.

That gave us the hierarchy.

Only then did we shape the persona’s characteristics. Demographic or biographical details were not the foundation. They were selected because they helped express what was critical about the product relationship.

We chose each persona’s characteristics to reflect its relationship with the product.

Tap the image to enlarge

Relationship with the product: Goals, Constraints, Pain points, Expectations, Motivation, Desired outcome.

Characteristics: Role, Age, Technical comfort, Financial context, Communication style, Daily context, Priorities.

02

We used customer language to keep them real.

Quotes and stories preserved how customers described value, expectations, and frustration in their own words.

Five people surrounded by speech bubbles with quotation marks, representing customer voices in their own words.

We drew from recurring expressions and customer language already present in the research.

This helped teams hear the difference between how the organization described the experience and how customers actually understood it.

Customer language kept the personas grounded in lived experience.

03

Every human detail had to carry the story.

Once the persona’s story was defined, every humanizing element was selected to reinforce it.

Every detail had to do part of the work.

Generic persona silhouette

  • Name

    The name needed to evoke something about the character.

  • Face and visual identity

    The face and visual identity needed to reflect the emotional tone of the story.

  • Voice and language

    The way the persona spoke had to make their priorities and tensions recognizable.

  • Context and recurring cues

    Their living context, color palette, signature language, and recurring visual cues all had to point back to the same meaning.

Making these relationships memorable required consistency across the whole profile.

The name, language, imagery, and contextual details all supported the same story.

Chapter VI

Embedding in Culture

How did they become part of the way people worked?

I planned the adoption work to continue beyond the initial introduction.

I designed the adoption strategy, developed supporting materials, and facilitated sessions to bring personas into recurring moments in employee onboarding and project work.

Different moments required different levels of detail.

I translated the framework into materials for quick reference, deeper understanding, comparison, and active use.

The format depended on what teams needed to do, whether that was checking a profile, understanding a journey, or using a persona in a workshop.

  • Quick reference

    • Quick persona profiles
    • Concise persona summaries

  • Deeper understanding

    • Full persona profiles
    • Persona journeys

  • Compare and discuss

    • Persona comparison tables
    • Presentation materials
    • Workshop canvases

  • Bring them into the workplace

    • Onboarding materials
    • Project-opening prompts and templates
    • Large cardboard persona figures for meeting rooms
    • Office posters and notice-board materials

People needed more than access to the materials.

They needed to understand how to think with them.

An illustration of four people seated around a large translucent human profile, each holding a pointer toward it while speech bubbles float above — a team collectively interpreting and building shared understanding around one persona.

How the personas became part of recurring work

  1. Guided sessions

    I introduced the personas through guided sessions.

    I wanted teams to feel confident applying the personas in their work.

    I led introduction sessions across the organization that helped teams distinguish the personas, understand what each represented, and use them without reducing them to labels or stereotypes.

  2. Onboarding

    I brought the framework into employee onboarding.

    Shared customer understanding began early.

    New employees encountered the personas before they developed separate assumptions about who the customer was and what mattered to them.

  3. New work

    I embedded personas at the beginning of new work.

    This brought customer needs into the conversation before teams committed to a solution.

    I designed kickoff workshops to help teams identify the relevant personas and consider their implications before developing solutions.

  4. Long-term reinforcement

    I designed for long-term reinforcement.

    Adoption came from connecting the personas to moments that already repeated.

    Onboarding introduced the framework. Guided sessions built confidence. Kickoff workshops put it into practice. Concise and physical materials kept it visible in between.

I designed these touchpoints so teams would revisit the personas as new work began.

Chapter VII

What changed inside the company?

The personas gave teams a shared way to bring customer context into decisions.

We gave the customer a seat at the table.

They could enter the room with a name, a story, and a voice of their own.

  • No longer an abstract audience.
  • No longer just “the customer.”
  • A person teams could recognize and represent in decisions.

A name could bring the whole customer into the room.

A persona name could serve as shorthand for a recognizable set of needs and expectations.

  • Motivations
  • Expectations
  • Frictions
  • Context
  • Values

Their presence changed the conversation.

  • Their needs entered earlier.

  • Their tensions became harder to ignore.

  • Their perspective stayed visible while decisions were made.

Empathyexpanded across the organization.

  • Teams further from customers could still see through their eyes.
  • Decisions carried more human context.
  • Understanding became more mature, nuanced, and shared.

Nuancebecame shared.

  • Product, Marketing, Sales, Support, and CX could hold the same distinctions.
  • Not one simplified customer.
  • A shared understanding of meaningful differences.

Customer centricityincreased.

The framework gave teams a way to bring customer context into discussions outside formal research activities.


We gave the customer a seat at the table.

They could enter the room with a name, a story, and a voice of their own.

An illustration of five people seated around a glowing round table, with one warmly lit person speaking and speech bubbles of family, home, and place floating above — the customer present in the room with a voice of their own.
Process summary

The full arc, step by step.

  1. Step 1: Internal Listening

    Gather beliefs from inside the org

  2. Step 2: Organizational Alignment

    Map team assumptions and blind spots

  3. Step 3: External Signals

    Analyze surveys, reviews, support logs

  4. Step 4: User Interviews

    Hear language, expectations, real pain points

  5. Step 5: Pattern Recognition

    Identify clusters, gaps, emerging segments

  6. Step 6: Persona Framing

    Define user types based on relationship with the product

  7. Step 7: Validation & Feedback

    Align with stakeholders, refine, adjust

  8. Step 8: Narrative Building

    Add names, stories, and real quotes

  9. Step 9: Embedding in Culture

    Introduce cards, language, and live usage

  10. Step 10: Ongoing Advocacy

    Ensure personas guide real decisions

Are you asking yourself...

“Can I see the actual personas?”

I wish!

But the personas themselves are confidential and belong to the company. What I can share is how I built them, how we brought them to life, and how they became part of everyday decision-making.

Curious to dive deeper? I'd be happy to chat one-on-one.

Let’s talk
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