Computational techniques are becoming more common in persona
development. However, users of personas may question the information in
persona profiles because they are unsure of how it was created. This
problem is especially vexing for data-driven personas because their
creation is an opaque algorithmic process. In this research, we analyze
the effect of increased transparency – i.e., explanations of how the
information in data-driven personas was produced – on user perceptions.
We find that higher transparency through these explanations increases
the perceived completeness and clarity of the personas. Contrary to our
hypothesis, the perceived credibility of the personas decreases with the
increased transparency, possibly due to the technical complexity of the
persona profiles disrupting the facade of the personas being real
people. This finding suggests that explaining the algorithmic process of
data-driven persona creation involves a “transparency trade-off”. We
also find that the gender of the persona affects the perceptions, with
transparency increasing perceived completeness and empathy of the female
persona, but not for the male persona. Therefore, transparency may
specifically assist in the acceptance of female personas. We provide
practical implication for persona creators regarding transparency in
persona profiles.