The ROI Of Personas

August 3rd, 2010

Vidya Drego

Moira Dorsey

With contributors:

Megan Burns , Shelby Catino

Summary

Although spending for research and persona creation is strong among persona advocates, many firms still report difficulty convincing their organizations that personas are worth the seemingly large investment, compared with the overall cost of a site redesign. To help firms assess whether persona investments are worth the extra cost, Forrester built a simple return on investment (ROI) model using data we gathered on the benefits of using personas in a site redesign. Our model shows that while there are benefits to a redesign without personas, a redesign with personas can provide a return of up to four times more. Firms interested in seeing this kind of return on their redesign should make sure that their personas are well crafted and are used to make design decisions by making qualitative research a priority, reviewing their personas periodically and making updates accordingly, as well as identifying specific decisions and tools that should be based on persona insights.

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