Led by Dr Andrew James Williams, the personas research study experimented with the use of community personas developed using Smartline survey data. The research informs organisations and businesses to support the development of products, processes, and services linked to health and wellbeing.

Personas are fictional characters based on real-life research. They provide opportunities for user-centered design without breeching personal privacy.

Using personas for health and wellbeing

Our personas help to communicate the needs, aspirations, strengths, motivations, experiences, behaviours, and lifestyles of people who live in Cornwall’s social housing.

The personas prove to be an engaging way of presenting complex data about health and wellbeing, demonstrating how research can generate greater impact, through being more transparent and open to the public. Beyond the project, we have also been asked to share our experience and methods with public health services to inform work on persona development.

How did we carry out the research?

For this research, participants included adult social housing residents living in central Cornwall. A total of 329 households were recruited between September 2017 and November 2018, with 235 (71.4%) providing complete baseline survey data on demographics, socioeconomic position, household composition, home environment, technology ownership, pet ownership, smoking, social cohesion, volunteering, caring, mental well-being, physical and mental health–related quality of life, and activity.

K-prototype cluster analysis was used to identify 8 clusters among the baseline survey responses. The sensor and interview data were subsequently analysed by cluster and the insights from all 3 data sources were brought together to produce the personas.

What did we find?

The Smartline personas have proved to be an engaging way of presenting data, accessible to a broader group of stakeholders than those who accessed the raw anonymized data, thereby providing a vehicle for greater research engagement, innovation, and impact.

The Guess Who Game

As part of this research we also created a Guess Who game based on the ‘personas’ to describe eight groups of people. The aim of the game is to match the story to the character. Businesses can use this game to understand different people’s needs within the community, and use this insight to make informed decisions.

For more information

This paper has now been published in the JMIR Journal of Public Health and Surveillance: Fostering Engagement With Health and Housing Innovation: Development of Participant Personas in a Social Housing Cohort by Dr Andrew James Williams and others.