Persona is person in Spanish
Goltz defines persona as, “a way to model, summarize and communicate research about people who have been observed or researched in some way.” Using your understanding of persona will allow the rhetor to create a more accurate and wholistic heuristics report, which will then allow the rhetor create a more effective product.
As the creator of videos for Austin Free-Net, we have to keep in mind that we are not making these videos for ourselves; instead, we are creating videos to serve a persona. I like this chart below, which illustrates what we are trying to accomplish.
Our persona is the population of people that will be using the videos of Austin Free-Net to improve their technological competency (goal). This can be understanding how to use Gmail, Facebook or the general web. The videos come in during the “Scenario” portion, which is where the person is engaging, responding, and trying to get to their goal. It is key to understand the persona prior to getting to this step because it will help us get to the overall goal.