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Several years ago, an Instructional Designer friend introduced me to the concept of learner personas. While I had some understanding of the importance of knowing your audience through design thinking workshops, the idea of actively building a learner persona was new to me. Since then, I’ve learned that learner personas are commonly used in instructional design, eLearning, and other fields.
After attending and presenting at the recent Learning Forward conference, the importance of developing learner personas has been on my mind. Like many other professional learning leaders, I often design workshops and sessions that align with my personal learning preferences. However, creating learner personas allows me to step outside my own tendencies and design learning experiences that are more inclusive and adaptable to diverse participant needs.
By considering the variety of preferences and needs in the room, we can design sessions that provide more choice and create a richer learning experience for everyone. Creating learner personas is a powerful tool to help achieve this.
What are Learner Personas?
This blog post describes learner personas as “fictional characters designed to help you understand real people.” By deeply understanding the needs, goals, and preferences of your audience, you can tailor your professional learning sessions, coaching interactions, or other events to be engaging, accessible, and meaningful for a broader range of participants.
A quick Google image search reveals many learner persona templates, which typically include details such as a bio, goals, motivations, needs, preferences, communication styles, and pain points. This Figjam template for learner personas includes sliders for traits like introvert vs. extrovert, individual vs. team player, and cautious vs. risk-taker.
AI tools can also support persona development, particularly when you’re unfamiliar with your audience. For instance, my classroom experience is in secondary math. If I’m presenting to primary teachers, I can use AI to generate a persona for a kindergarten teacher, uncovering gaps in my understanding and helping me design more relevant content. This Doc includes sample AI prompts and responses to guide your persona creation process.
One key feature of learner personas is the inclusion of an image. Whether it’s a photo or a representative illustration, this humanizing touch helps keep the learner at the center of your design process.
Creating learner personas can range from quick reminders—like, “Some people prefer printed handouts while others want digital resources”—to more involved research, surveys, and data collection. You can ask questions such as:
When do participants prefer learning (e.g., before or after school)?
How do they prefer to receive information (e.g., email, video, face-to-face)?
This information helps you design experiences that align with diverse needs, making learning more engaging and effective. The Learning Forward Standard of Learning Design includes the construct “selects learning designs appropriate [for attaining professional learning goals and outcomes].” By using learner personas, you can make these selections more intentional and participant-centered.
Who is in Your Audience?
Understanding your audience is a critical first step.
For example, in my work with a nonprofit organization, I’m planning a student conference. The nonprofit's founder, who is a mechanical engineer, asked us to create learner personas for all conference participants. These profiles have become essential as we plan the learning experience. We developed five distinct personas for the event:
middle school students excited about STEAM fields;
middle school students indifferent to STEAM;
public/private school educators;
homeschool parents/coaches;
sponsors and vendors from engineering firms.
Similarly, consider creating personas for educators in your district. For instance, your “new” teachers might include:
Brand-new college graduates just entering the profession.
Experienced educators new to your district.
Alternatively certified teachers with no classroom experience.
Instructional coaches who work with multiple subject teams might consider how team personalities differ and create personas to better support their unique needs. For example, when supporting PLCs for the math department, social studies department, and world language teams, I noticed that each team had distinct “personalities,” communication styles, and preferences. Learner personas for each team could have served as helpful guides for planning, crafting emails, or navigating interactions with colleagues.
Taking the time to reflect on who is in your audience helps you design learning experiences that are more thoughtful and impactful.
Learner Personas in Professional Learning
As mentioned earlier, I sometimes tend to design learning that I would like to experience, but I know my preferences are not the same as those of my participants. By creating learner personas, I’ve broadened my perspective and made intentional efforts to design with others in mind.
For my recent Learning Forward conference presentation on using AI to design professional learning, I intentionally sought feedback from trusted colleagues and friends. I asked them to adopt the personas of educators who were brand new to using AI. Their insights helped me design a session that catered to participants with varying levels of expertise, helping me consider the needs of those less familiar with the tools while still providing value to more advanced users.
This session was also a highly collaborative “idea exchange.” To support participants who might feel drained by constant turn-and-talk activities, I included sentence stems for discussions. However, midway through the session, I realized an adjustment was needed. One colleague pointed out, “What about introverts who are tired of meeting new people by day three of the conference?” In response, I offered two options: get up and share with someone new or continue reflecting silently. This informal persona—a participant who is introverted and exhausted—helped me pivot the session to accommodate different social preferences.
Even though I didn’t know exactly who my conference audience members would be, constructing informal learner personas through feedback allowed me to anticipate diverse needs. These efforts ultimately elevated the learning experience and made it more inclusive.
A key takeaway from my recent learning experiences is the importance of providing opportunities for choice. Reflecting on my own preferences, I know I’m less likely to engage with paper handouts and would benefit more from digital resources. I often feel more comfortable contributing through digital response options rather than sharing in large-group discussions. While some participants thrive on meeting new people throughout a session, I find it refreshing to have the option to work individually or stay with the same thinking partner.
Understanding my own learning preferences is a valuable starting point because it allows me to consider participants whose preferences might be entirely different from mine. By designing learning experiences with learner personas in mind, we can intentionally create environments that acknowledge the diverse humans in the room and provide opportunities for everyone to feel seen and included.
Create a Learner Persona
Want to create a learner persona? Use this Google Slide template (select “USE TEMPLATE” to make a copy) or download the PDF version. The template includes prompts to help you define your persona’s preferences, goals, and challenges, as well as an area to add a visual representation.
Here are three ways to get started:
Create a learner persona of yourself and then design activities for someone with preferences that are the opposite of yours. Reflect on how this shift broadens your perspective.
Develop learner personas for your audience or team and keep them handy as you plan sessions, coaching interactions, or meetings. Refer back to them to ensure you’re addressing diverse needs.
Build personas for an upcoming event to capture the diverse roles of your participants. For example, how many different types of attendees might you expect? Create a persona for each role, then tweak their profiles as you envision how they’ll respond to various aspects of your session.
Taking the time to create learner personas helps you design more inclusive, thoughtful, and impactful learning experiences.
Reflect and Connect
How might a learner persona shape the way you design professional learning or coaching sessions?
What adjustments can you make to better meet your audience’s needs?
By designing with learner personas in mind, you can create experiences that elevate learning for everyone in the room. Start small—try creating one learner persona for your next session—and see how it transforms the way you design and connect with your participants.
Kathryn Laster brings over 30 years of education expertise as a math teacher, instructional coach, and digital learning consultant. Now, as an independent consultant, Kathryn creates and facilitates transformative learning experiences through intentional, human-centered, tech-infused design. Connect with Kathryn at Refined Learning Design.
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