What's the difference between a Persona and Anti-Persona?
A Persona is the crafted archetype or representation of the customer that will use, buy, or interact with your product. A persona is fictitious and often is a composite of several customers rolled into one. The Persona helps the team understand the customer and guides design decisions.
An Anti-Persona is similar to a persona in that it is also a fictitious composite of a customer archetype. The Anti-Persona helps the team understand the customer they DO NOT want and also helps guide design decisions.
Why bother with the Anti-Persona?
It's about creating Context around your product. Your product is focused on the customer you want and the customer you don't want. By contrasting the two personas, you create a more precise line or border around your customer used for design decisions. You're making a more holistic and focused context, which drives better design choices for the product.
How would you define the term context?
Although Context is often compared to scope management for projects (IN scope and OUT of scope), Context is used in many different ways, not just with personas and project scope. Context creates a center point, focus, or target by contrasting both negative and positive points. Pros versus cons, the good and the bad, circles and soup, and what drives us forward and what drives us backward are examples of techniques that utilize Context.
