User persona vs buyer persona: which one do you need?

Teams argue about personas more than they use them, and a lot of the arguing comes from mixing up two different tools. A user persona and a buyer persona look alike on the page. They answer different questions, come from different research, and belong to different people in the company. This guide separates them, adds the two other types the persona generator offers, and gives you a quick way to decide.

The user persona

A user persona describes someone who uses the product: the person whose hands are on the keyboard, the phone, the scanner, the ticket machine. The questions it answers are design questions. What is this person trying to get done? What is in the way? In what situation do they meet the product, and with how much attention to spare?

Its sections reflect that: goals, frustrations, scenarios, comfort with technology. Its research is observation and interviews with users, often in the place they do the work. Its owners are designers, researchers, product managers and the engineers who build the thing.

Marcus Tuilagi, the warehouse shift lead, is a user persona. Nothing on his page is about whether his employer will buy software. All of it is about what the software has to survive at 1 am with gloves on.

The buyer persona

A buyer persona describes the person who decides to buy, approves the purchase, or can stop it. In consumer products the buyer and the user are often the same person. In business software they rarely are: a nurse uses the record system, a hospital IT director chose it, and a procurement officer signed the contract.

The questions a buyer persona answers are marketing and sales questions. What does this person need to see before they will say yes? What objections will they raise? Where do they get their information? Who else has to agree?

Its sections are different: challenges, buying criteria, objections, where they get information. Its research is interviews with recent buyers and lost deals, sales call notes, and the questions that come up in procurement. Its owners are marketing and sales.

Minh Tran, the IT director, is a buyer persona. He never uses the tools he evaluates for more than a pilot. His page is about the security questionnaire and the price in year three.

Customer and student personas

The tool offers two more starting points.

A customer persona sits between the other two. It is for consumer products and services, where the person who chooses is the person who uses, and the useful sections are needs, wants, values and fears rather than buying criteria. Rosa Alvarez, planning a grocery trip across three stores, is a customer persona.

A student persona is for courses, learning products and anything with a syllabus. It swaps frustrations for struggles, adds how the person learns best and why they are learning at all. Kevin Osei, studying data analysis at the kitchen table after his kids are asleep, is a student persona.

These are templates, not laws. Every section in the tool can be renamed, reordered or deleted. The type just gives you a sensible first page.

How to tell which one you need

Ask who the decision is about.

• If the decision is about how something works, what it shows, what order the steps go in, how it behaves when the network drops: user persona.
• If the decision is about how to describe, price, position or sell something, or which objections the website has to answer: buyer persona.
• If the product is sold directly to the people who use it: customer persona, and you may only need the one.
• If the product teaches: student persona, possibly alongside a buyer persona for the institution that pays.

Most B2B products need both a user persona and a buyer persona, and the mistake is to make one and ask it to do both jobs. A buyer persona asked design questions produces interfaces built for people who will never log in. A user persona asked marketing questions produces a website that explains the product to someone who already uses it.

One research round, two personas

If you need both, you can often get both from one round of research with a little planning. When you interview a company that uses your product, ask to speak to one person who uses it daily and one person who chose it. Ask the user what they did last Tuesday. Ask the buyer what nearly stopped the deal. Keep the notes separate.

Whichever you make, finish the page with the "Based on" section. "Six user interviews at three customers" and "Four conversations with recent buyers and two lost deals" are different foundations, and the people reading the persona should know which one they are standing on. A persona without that line is a guess with a photo.

Start with the one you can research

If you can only do one, do the one you can research properly. A user persona from six interviews beats a user persona and a buyer persona both made from a brainstorm. Pick a type in the persona generator, fill in what you learned, and leave the rest for the next round.