A learner persona is a short description of a typical learner. By personalizing learners, personas help instructors figure out who they’re trying to help and communicate that understanding to each other and to learners. Each persona has general background, relevant prior knowledge or experience, the learner’s perception of their needs, and any special considerations.
Any workshop, tutorial, how-to guide, or reference manual should be designed for 1–3 specific personas. The personas below have been synthesized from ones created by RStudio staff and certified instructors; improvements and additions very welcome, and can be made through the GitHub repository.
| Persona | In Brief | Domain Knowledge | Statistics Knowledge | Programming Knowledge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anya Academic | A professor who needs training for her research and to pass on to students. | expert | competent | competent |
| Celine Certified | A certified RStudio instructor. | competent | competent | competent |
| Exton Excel | A proficient Excel user working in industry who wants to switch to R. | competent | novice | novice |
| Jacqui Ofalltrades | A data science generalist at a small consulting company. | expert | expert | expert |
| Katrin Keener | An R enthusiast. | competent | competent | competent |
| Larry Legacy | A reluctant learner who would really rather just keep using the tools he knows. | expert | expert | novice |
| M'shelle Manager | An ex-programmer who now leads a team and needs to make decisions about tool adoption and training. | competent | novice | competent |
| Nang Newbie | An undergraduate student without statistical knowledge, programming skills, and real-world experience. | novice | novice | novice |
| Toshi Techsupport | A sys admin who has to support data scientists. | expert | novice | expert |
A novice is someone who doesn’t yet have a mental model of some field: as a result, they don’t know what they don’t know. Someone is competent if they know enough to perform routine tasks without heroic effort, while they are an expert if they are able to solve common problems at a glance and harder or more unusual problems reliably.
The domains in these personas (such as pharmacy or event management) are meant to be placeholders: swap in another domain such as finance or logistics as desired.