Every person on your team has a different "user" in their head — and nobody ever says it out loud.

A proto-persona fixes that without needing a research budget or weeks of interviews. It's not research. It's your team's assumptions, written down and agreed on, so everyone designs for the same person instead of five different ones.

Here's how I build one: ask AI to draft it first, strip out anything that sounds like a stereotype, get the team in one room to argue with the draft, then label it clearly as a guess — not a fact.

A proto-persona won't replace research. It'll tell you what to research first.

Does your team actually agree on who you're designing for — or has nobody checked?

#UXResearch #UXDesign #ProductDesign #AIinResearch