This session introduces the concept of User Roles as an alternative to Personas, through a case study demonstrating their development and implementation for a multinational SAAS company. The case study presentation will alternate with exercises that provide attendees with the skills and knowledge necessary to create User Roles, and strategies for disseminating them to key stakeholders. We will discuss the feedback we received from product and design teams on the value of User Roles as well as how we convinced executives to stop asking for personas. Based on our experience we will argue that User Roles are an effective way to: – Organize and disseminate user information – Keep the user front of mind for product and design teams – Create a single source of truth for understanding the people who a product If you’re ready to ditch personas but don’t know how, this course is for you!