Personas are commonly used in software projects to gain a better understanding of end-users' needs. However, there is a limited understanding of their usage and effectiveness in practice. This paper presents the results of a two-step investigation, comprising interviews with 26 software developers, UI/UX designers, business analysts and product managers and a survey of 203 practitioners, aimed at shedding light on the current practices, methods and challenges of using personas in software development. Our findings reveal variations in the frequency and effectiveness of personas across different software projects and IT companies, the challenges practitioners face when using personas and the reasons for not using them at all. Furthermore, we investigate the coverage of human aspects in personas, often assumed to be a key feature of persona descriptions. Contrary to the general perception, our study shows that human aspects are often ignored for various reasons in personas or requirements engineering in general. Our study provides actionable insights for practitioners to overcome challenges in using personas during requirements engineering stages, and we identify areas for future research.

翻译：摘要：人物角色在软件项目中常用于更深入地理解最终用户需求。然而，对其在实际中的使用方式和有效性仍缺乏充分认识。本文通过两步调查法——首先访谈26名软件开发人员、UI/UX设计师、业务分析师及产品经理，随后对203名从业者进行问卷调查——旨在揭示当前软件开发中使用人物角色的实践、方法及挑战。研究结果表明，不同软件项目和IT企业间人物角色的使用频率及有效性存在差异，从业者在使用过程中面临诸多挑战，并揭示了部分从业者完全不使用人物角色的原因。此外，我们探究了人物角色中人类方面的覆盖程度——这常被视为人物角色描述的关键特征。与普遍认知相反，本研究发现，在人物角色或需求工程中，人类方面往往因多种原因被忽略。本研究为从业者在需求工程阶段克服人物角色使用中的困难提供了可操作的见解，并指明了未来研究方向。