The conception and gestation phase of the persona lifecycle involves a great deal of activity, teamwork, and decision making. You have become an alchemist, combining data, (Story from the field, continued) assumptions, and your understanding of what will and will not work in your company to create a rich set of design targets. You have translated raw data into information, and that information into prioritized categories and subcategories of users. You have created a set of personas that combines fact and fiction to reflect your business priorities and convey the essential information about your target users you found in the data. As much as possible, you have with explicit links to the original data supported every important characteristic and statement found in your foundation documents. Last, you have done validation work before finalizing your personas.

As we have stated several times previously, we believe very strongly that personas should be based on data. Even the perception that the personas are not based on data can damage their credibility and utility. However, it is practically unavoidable that some elements of personas are generated from educated guesses or are simply made up. Your job in the conception and gestation phase is to make informed decisions about how much fiction and storytelling is needed to make your personas feel real and be truly engaging. Creating personas involves straightforward fact gathering, but there is also an art to it. Be inventive, but also be practical and stay as...