On Dec 23, 2009, at 12:10 PM, Krzysztof Kosiński wrote:

It says that user personas are created based on actual survey or
interview data. Isn't me or you inventing them "cargo cult marketing"?

No.

I've been conducting surveys for years now, and from many different groups. These include complete computer novices, some who have been graphic designers, some who have not.

To do this correctly, we should ask people from here:
http://www.inkscapeforum.com/
and create personas that correspond to the answers.

That won't work. There you have a very specialized subset of potential users. You might be able to get one or maybe two personas from that pool, but nothing near what one would get from querying people at SVG Open or such.