Personas represent the people who will use the application you build. Clear personas help Elle make better decisions about navigation, workflows, and functionality, and give you a reference point for judging whether what you built serves the people it is meant for. Personas are one part of your application's strategy, alongside its vision and goals.
You need to be an owner of an application to add or edit its personas.
Click any of the following links to skip ahead:
Add a persona
Navigate to Plan -> Strategy -> Personas to see the personas for your application. When you first create an application, Elle generates a starting set of personas from what you described, so you will usually have a few here already to refine.
Click Add persona to create another one.
Each persona has a reference ID that follows your application's prefix, such as APPCOT-P-1. You can use this ID to point Elle at a specific persona, or reference the persona by name.
Persona details
A persona in Aha! Builder captures who the person is and what they need from your application:
Description: A summary of who this person is and the role they play.
Responsibilities: The tasks and duties this persona handles.
Skills: The persona's proficiency across the areas that matter for your application.
Goals: What this persona wants to accomplish with your application.
Challenges: The pain points and obstacles this persona faces today.
Click into any field to edit its content directly. Keep the details specific — the more concrete a persona is, the more useful it is when you prompt Elle or run a test against it.
Add a profile image
Add a profile image to give a persona a face and make it easier to recognize at a glance. Hover over the image and click the More options icon to:
Select Upload image to add or replace the picture.
Select Remove image to clear it.
Ask Elle to generate a new image for your persona!
Reference a persona when prompting Elle
Personas give Elle a concrete audience to build for. When you prompt Elle to add or change something, reference a persona by its reference ID so Elle tailors the work to that person.
For example, ask Elle to adjust a workflow "with Peter the PM in mind" and it will shape the change around that persona's goals and challenges.
Referencing a persona is a quick way to add context to a prompt without restating who the application is for.
Test an application with a persona
Personas drive virtual user testing, available on the Aha! Builder Team and Aha! Builder Scale plans. You can start a test with a persona already selected, right from the personas page:
Click the Run virtual user testing icon on a persona card. The Virtual user testing modal opens with that persona already chosen in the Persona dropdown.
Describe the workflow you want to test, then click Submit. The virtual user evaluates your application from that persona's point of view, surfacing the friction they would hit before real users do.
You can also start a test from the Preview menu bar or the Ideas tab and choose a persona there. You do not need a persona selected to run a virtual test.
Edit or remove a persona
Click into any field on a persona to edit its content directly.
To delete a persona you no longer need, click the trash icon on its card.