Where can I find good user personas portrait pictures?

11 September 2013 – 16:48

Hi there!

We all know that user personas are a fantastic technique to develop a good user-centered design but, when you’ve just finished your first one, the magic question then arises: where can I get some good portrait photos for my personas?

So, Here you have some excellent resources to help you find good pictures:

First of all, the easy one: Flickr searching for portrait pictures under creative common license.
The new tool in town: randomuser.me — They even provide an API to fetch JSON files with random user names :-D
The classic: sxc.hu — it requires to create a free account, but is a good resource for royalty-free stock images.
new! Free Avatar Pack from PlaceIt 200 avatars, 300x300px, completely free (thanks Antonio Freire)
And the sweetest and coolest source: exactitudes.com — an amazing photography series from Photographer Ari Versluis and profiler Ellie Uyttenbroek, focusing in different dress codes and social groups. Just have a look, even if you’re not looking for persona pictures.

Remember to check that the license matches your project, and enjoy!

This is the personal website of Ignacio Palomo Duarte, Product Manager . If you're looking for my portfolio and more information just have a look at the homepage, and if you like this article maybe you can consider sharing it on twitter.