There’s often a moment on design projects when we decide it's time to create user personas – but could the concept of ‘mindsets’ be more powerful?
Personas work as design anchors for a product team. They ensure the focus is on what’s important for users, not for designers.
More than that, they can be good stand-ins for entire user groups, including their needs, pain points, and motivations.
Traditionally, I would reach for my usual templates to create them. But during one of my recent projects, in the aviation industry, we were given the task to design an application process, and I decided to test a different approach.
This shift was prompted by a suggestion from one of my colleagues, Luisella, a superstar service designer I was working with at the time. She introduced me to the concept of mindsets.
I found myself intrigued and decided to give it a go. Here's some of what I learned, and why I believe mindsets can be more effective than personas in certain contexts.
Understanding mindsets
Mindsets influence design decisions in profound ways.
Unlike personas, which often emphasise demographic details and rely on stereotypes, mindsets focus on the user's approach to a task, their behaviours, and their attitudes.
This approach allows us to consider how users think about, feel about, and interact with a service, offering a broader and more flexible understanding of user needs.
For instance, when creating personas, there's often a temptation to force diverse user needs into predefined categories.
This can lead to fragmented or overly generalised profiles that may not accurately represent the users' true needs.
In contrast, mindsets allow us to group users based on shared behaviours and attitudes, regardless of their demographic differences.
This can be particularly useful when designing services for users with similar pain points but varied backgrounds.
The problem with personas
In our project, we were provided with several personas designed during a previous round of user research.
They covered a wide variety of user groups such as the public, emergency services, large enterprises, and small enterprises.
There was nothing wrong with this set of personas. In fact, they were extremely informative, and you could tell the level of research that went into creating them.
However, each persona came with a distinct set of needs, making it challenging to design a service that addressed them all effectively.
It was at that point I realised that personas can easily become outdated and force you to report on the past.
They have become a ticking exercise for the design team.
They have become the template with which product teams, including designers, project managers, and developers, are familiar.
They can be overwhelming as several personas need to be created to represent all user groups.
This final point is what triggered me to dive into the concept of mindsets. During our research we found that many service users had needs that didn't fit neatly into the existing personas.
Why mindsets might be better
Mindsets offer a way to cover a broader range of users without focusing too much on specifics, such as their role, experience, age, or location.
Instead, mindsets focus on understanding who users are, how they interact with a service, and highlighting common approaches and attitudes.
They are usually structured on a quadrant, around two spectrums representing key user behaviours and traits.
How we developed our mindsets
Here’s how we developed our mindsets and the key aspects I took into consideration.
Key variables
I began by identifying the two key variables that were common across all my user groups and fundamental in how they interacted with the service. These variables affected their approach and behaviour.
As the service we were designing involved an application process, I focused on their level of experience in completing the application, and the amount of support they needed to do so successfully.
Approach and beliefs
I then considered how users approach the task and the different pathways they may go through to accomplish their mission. Do they seek help, use resources, or work independently?
I followed this by thinking about their beliefs and behaviours when interacting with the service.
Do they trust the service or organisation? Do they feel confident and informed about how to use the service? Or do they feel left in the dark?
Attributes
Attributes are common traits among users that significantly impact their interaction with the service and have a strong correlation with the way they approach it.
Although they’ll be service-dependent, I included attributes such as:
- level of readiness
- level of scepticism
- level of willingness to pay for a service
Qualities and kryptonites
As a bonus, I included those traits that stood out for each mindset as characteristics that would allow them to complete their application successfully.
I also included those traits that could compromise their application – their kryptonites, like the alien crystal that is Superman’s only weakness.
The mindsets I created
To bring this to life, I’m going to share more details about the four mindsets I identified and documented.
Each mindset was defined by specific beliefs and approaches, helping us tailor the service to meet their needs more effectively.
Although the high-level summaries given below can be used in a more generic format, more detailed mindset profiles were created for each of them, providing further details about their approach and beliefs, as well as the type of users who would fit into this quadrant.
The Traditionalist
Experienced but prefers traditional methods. They might need more guidance with digital applications.
The Proficient
Highly experienced and independent, often early adopters who require minimal support.
The Path Follower
New to the process, they rely heavily on social proof and guidance from others.
The Pathfinder
Also new, but more proactive in seeking out solutions and completing tasks independently.
Validating mindsets
To validate our mindsets, we matched each participant to a mindset framework after each user research session was conducted.
This exercise confirmed our assumptions and demonstrated the value of designing for diverse mindsets. It told us that focusing on what they think, feel, and do, is powerful and can heavily influence design decisions.
It also demonstrated that, as opposed to personas, mindsets are a fluid artifact. Attitudes and behaviours shift over time or change depending on context.
Initially, the client's design was targeted primarily at The Proficient, but our findings showed that most participants fell into the other mindsets.
Focusing on these mindsets enabled to build a more inclusive and effective design.
In the long term, we could envisage how users could move over time towards The Proficient quadrant if the service was designed with them at the core.
The mindset approach was transformative
Switching from personas to mindsets was transformative for our project. It allowed us to design a service that addressed a wider range of user needs and behaviours.
While creating mindsets can be challenging, the insights gained make it more than worthwhile.
As this has been a new experience for me, I’d love to hear about your experiences if you've worked with mindsets before or have any tips to share.
Feel free to reach out with any questions or share your own stories about using mindsets in design projects. You can find me on LinkedIn.
