a “back-up” or “low budget” persona, which is better than having no persona at all. (Also see what the long-time UX executive Peter Merholz has to say about profiles in Chapter 10.) Provisional persona layout and breakdown The provisional personas will collect and present the assumptions you are making about your primary customer segment. Therefore, all information will be contextual to the hypothesized customer and relevant to the value proposition. Specifics such as demographic details or user goals aren’t necessary unless they are essential to the product. Instead, you want to focus your personas on what you assume is important to customers and how they are currently dealing with the problem. The provisional persona is made up of these four parts: Name and snapshot/sketch What is the customer’s name? What does she look like? If you’re going with a certain gender or demographic — in this example, perhaps a woman in her late 20s or early 30s — search for popular baby names of the early 1980s. If you can sketch, draw her. If you have a photo of someone who fits the part, just paste it. If not, find a good reference photo using Google Images or Flickr. Description What factors personally motivate the customer? The description should be a composite archetype of the customer that is relevant to the product idea rather than a stereotype of psychographic or demographic details. For example, your team only cares about the customer’s taste in cars if you are solving a problem related to cars. Behaviors This category can be answered in several ways. The first is how the customer is trying to solve the problem now. Is it via a workaround on the Internet? In the real world or a hybrid of both? Is the customer tech-savvy enough to use the Internet to solve his problem? Is he using social networks to do it? Or are there general behaviors for customers who are using similar types of digital products that are relevant to your solution? The second is how the person’s personality affects his behavior. For example, if the person is professionally successful, does that make him a good problem solver? Is the customer trusting or skeptical? Needs and goals