What Are Learner Personas and Should You Use Them For Your Training Program?

In order to build the perfect corporate training program for a team, instructional designers need to know what works best for those learners. 

Are they more visual and collaborative, does the information stick better if presented gradually versus all at once, or even what colors make them more comfortable are all bits of information that can help build a successful training content session. 

What may seem like the obvious way to obtain this information is to collect feedback from learners after completing a training session. And while this can absolutely be an important way to update content, you can save time and increase engagement sooner by conducting research before building the training content. 

When you conduct this research prior to building a corporate learning program, you can create learner personas, which are mock target audiences that help instructional designers build user-centered designs. 

What is a Learner Persona? And How to Build One.

Learner personas are similar to marketing personas, in that learning and development teams (L&D) use them to create training programs and other content that will resonate with their audience before creating any training materials. 

Personalized learning is a proven way to improve learner engagement, which is why instructional design teams choose to create learning personas before building their learning platform.

These mock target audiences are developed using mock personas, which can include technical skills, behaviors, professional background, and more. Some L&D teams go as far as giving their learner personas names, photos, and fictional backstories. 

They get this information by conducting interviews, reviewing HR and sign up documents, or even just through casual conversations with future learners. 

Whether you’re conducting in person learning courses, virtual training sessions, or engaging with hybrid learners, understanding who your audience is can help you create the most effective training sessions. What motivates them (or doesn’t), their goals, their experience with technology, and more are important to understand so you can inspire learning and personal growth among your real learners.

When to Use a Learner Persona

When building an in persona corporate learning environment, a digital training, or a hybrid learning experience, using a learner persona can help create the most effective training programs. 

Before you choose a format, including a digital content distribution platform, you should create your learner personas. Regardless of how you plan to deliver content, utilizing learning personas is key — it can even help you decide which platform or medium to use! 

Content Delivery Options for All Learner Personas

When building a training program, you should consider different options to deliver your content to all of your learners, whether in person, hybrid or virtual. 

Mimeo Business makes it easy for you to reach all of your learners, no matter where they are, how they learn, or what they are learning. Mimeo is an online content management platform that lets you manage your training program content from anywhere, and lets your learners access it from wherever they are — even if they’re online. 

Now that you know who your learners are after building learning personas, sign up for a Mimeo account to save money and time, as well as increase engagement and retention among your learners.