User Personas
Understanding the diverse profiles of walkers is essential for designing inclusive and effective leisure walking systems.
Understanding the diverse profiles of walkers is essential for designing inclusive and effective leisure walking systems.
User personas represent archetypal profiles that capture the motivations, behaviours, and needs of different types of walkers. They are a crucial design tool for understanding variation across demographics, physical abilities, cultural practices, and walking purposes.
By identifying distinct personas, walking systems can be tailored to reflect the lived realities of their users—whether emphasising accessibility, leisure value, safety, or efficiency. Personas also enable the balancing of competing priorities within route recommendation and infrastructure design.
The commuter persona values speed, efficiency, and reliability. Walking is primarily a means of reaching public transport or the workplace, and priorities include direct routes, time predictability, and safe crossings. Delays or detours are highly undesirable for this group.
The leisure walker seeks enjoyment, relaxation, and exploration. Scenic quality, greenery, and cultural landmarks are valued, often outweighing efficiency. This persona is motivated by mood enhancement, exercise, or social interaction, and may prefer longer, more engaging routes.
Health walkers integrate walking into exercise routines or therapeutic practices. Key considerations include distance, surface quality, and gradient, which affect both intensity and accessibility. Metrics such as step counts or calories burned may guide their preferences.
This persona includes individuals with mobility aids, parents with prams, or those requiring step-free and barrier-free access. Essential factors include smooth surfaces, kerb cuts, benches for rest, and well-maintained lighting. Route planning must minimise obstacles and steep gradients.
Tourists walk to experience a place, prioritising cultural, historical, and scenic value. Their preferences include well-marked routes, interpretation materials, and opportunities for photography. Safety and clarity of navigation are crucial given unfamiliarity with the environment.
Different personas may hold competing priorities: for example, commuters value directness, while leisure walkers seek scenic detours. Designing systems that accommodate multiple user types requires offering configurable route options and transparent trade-offs between efficiency and experience.
Failure to account for certain personas risks exclusion, particularly for those with accessibility needs or non-dominant cultural practices. Personas should be continuously refined through participatory engagement and empirical data collection to ensure inclusivity and equity in design.