Matt Fehlberg
Personas are fictional characters used to represent typical users, customers or other stakeholders. They are created from a synthesis of data from real people gathered through methods such as interviews (p.92) and questionnaires (p.126). Personas can distil the information from our raw user data that is most pertinent to the design issues, avoiding idiosyncratic information that might be misleading.
Continued on pages 122-123 of Design. Think. Make. Break. Repeat.