User Persona Deep Dive, Part 1 — Understanding “Person 2” (I’m Person 1)

Описание: October 23, 2025. Where product theory meets real users. I’m Person 1, and today I’m building the persona of Person 2—a woman on the spectrum who’s quick with puns, speaks in high-energy, "word-vomit" information-dense bursts, and somehow ends up lonely despite being friendly. She isn’t disliked or overtly rejected; people just quietly avoid long conversations because they can feel effortful. The "mild irritant" effect: people have to mentally prepare before talking to her, conversations feel like chores even when the person is liked. I recognize myself in this pattern.

Key insight: Person 2 “speaks in paragraphs”—like submitting an essay or pasting a prompt—delivering everything at once, while many neurotypical listeners need pacing and processing time. That mismatch creates friction.

Why video is better than text for Person 2:

A one-minute video showing her cat, then a pivot to the rain outside, carries 1000× more personality than “I’m eating lunch, thinking about pasta.”

Text invites perfectionism and self-censorship (I delete messages to avoid “oversharing”); video forces presence and context—tone, facial cues, pacing.

Her “multi-thread” style becomes a feature on video: if you can track threads and enjoy wordplay, it’s exciting—especially when there’s a sharp mind behind it.

Design implications (turning pain into features):

Video-first profiles & messages: presence over polishing.

Mandatory full-profile scroll: consider the whole human, not just the first photo.

Daily profile limits: align with real life—you don’t meet thousands of people a day.

Depth guardrails: small cap on active connections (inspired by “max-8; add one, release one”) to prioritize attention, not accumulation.

Assistive pacing tools: auto-captions, adjustable playback speed, and “topic chips” that label threads so high-energy talk feels navigable rather than overwhelming.

No cosmetic filters: if something matters, say it in a short video—reduce bias disguised as “preferences.”

I’m building for people whose authentic intensity is often labeled “too much” in neurotypical spaces—and reframing that intensity as signal, not noise. The interface as ethics, continued.

Note: I obviously use AI to make my written thoughts coherent. Also, hashtags, because sometimes you just have to play the game :/
#BuildInPublic #actuallyautistic #UserResearch #ProductDesign #Neurodivergent #UXDesign #datingapps #Autism #FounderJourney #PersonaDevelopment