Towards Using Personas in Requirements Engineering: What Has Been Changed Recently?

TL;DR

This systematic mapping study examines recent trends in using personas in requirements engineering, highlighting the integration of AI, the rise of template-based personas, and increased focus on validation from April 2023 to April 2025.

Contribution

The paper provides a comprehensive overview of recent developments in persona usage in RE, emphasizing AI applications and evolving representation and validation methods.

Findings

AI-based solutions are increasingly used for persona construction and validation.

Template-based personas are gaining popularity.

There is a rising focus on validation in recent studies.

Abstract

In requirements engineering (RE), personas are now being used to represent user expectations and needs. This systematic mapping study (SMS) aims to explore the most recent studies and to cover recent changes in trends, especially related to the recent evolution of Generative AI approaches. Our SMS covers the period between April 2023 and April 2025. We identified 22 relevant publications and analysed persona representation, construction, validation, as well as RE activities covered by personas. We identified that a number of studies applied AI-based solutions for persona construction and validation. We observed that template-based personas are becoming more popular nowadays. We also observed an increase in the proportion of studies covering validation aspects.