Digital Personas: Integrating social research with population data

Digital technologies aimed at improving outcomes for women often fail because they do not adequately account for the diversity of women’s access, capabilities, social contexts, and digital journeys. This breakout session presents an interactive demonstration of Digital Personas, a data-driven, mixed-methods approach designed to support more gender-intentional technology design. Building on the Pathways Platform (https://www.withpathways.org/), our work integrates population-representative quantitative data with deep qualitative research across Kenya, Nigeria, and Senegal. By situating rich, lived experiences of women within robust segmentation models, Digital Personas move beyond generic “women users” to reflect distinct patterns of access, agency, constraints, and aspirations. This segmented approach helps ensure that technologies are designed not only for women, but with an understanding of which women, in which contexts, and for what outcomes. The talk will share practical tools and design tracks derived from this work, demonstrating how data can be translated into actionable insights for different audiences, ranging from policymakers and funders assessing impact potential, to product teams refining feature sets, onboarding strategies, and delivery models. Participants will get to see how these data-enhanced personas can be used to test assumptions, identify inclusion gaps, and map a technology’s realistic impact catchment.