Persona ?

[Pyanepsion]

The term “Persona” was originally a sociological invention used in marketing. In this science, it consists of creating a fictitious character to synthesize the possible behavior of customers.
In computer science, the term was extrapolated by Alan Cooper, one of the designers of Visual Basic.

And what is the Affinity suite about?

Persona in : English, German, French.

[R C-R]

The correct English language Wikipedia link is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persona. According to https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/persona, the first known use was in 1732 in the sense of a character in a written work. The word has also sometimes been used as a synonym for the roles played by theatrical actors.

I suspect Serif decided to use it as a metaphor to suggest each persona is intended to play a different 'role' in the software, as if the app itself is the actor ... or something like that?

[Dan C]

From the Affinity help file (https://affinity.help/designer/en-US.lproj/index.html?page=pages/Introduction/about_Personas.html?title=Personas) -

"Think of Personas as different ways of working within your application. If you want to work purely with vector tools you can design in the default Designer Persona; for additional raster textures and pixel brush strokes operations the Pixel Persona is the choice for you. One final Persona, Export Persona, is ideal for exporting specific areas of your design as usable graphics (for web, print, etc.)."        

6 hours ago, R C-R said:

I suspect Serif decided to use it as a metaphor to suggest each persona is intended to play a different 'role' in the software, as if the app itself is the actor

I can't speak directly for the developers here, but I agree that this is the overall metaphor in use here, that each 'Persona' is a slightly different set of skills/tools to use, but that still orbit around the same core functionality (Photo editing, Vector creation etc).

[thomaso]

> The term “Persona” was originally a sociological invention used in marketing. (...)
> (...) first known use was in 1732 in the sense of a character in a written work. 

I became curious and found that in its Latin origin it was a mask object used by theater actors to focus their speaking, like a kind of analog megaphone.
prefix "per" (engl.: ~ through) / "sona" < "sonare" (engl. ~ to sound)

Quote

VII. "Personae" vocabulum quam lepide interpretatus sit quamque esse vocis eius originem dixerit Gavius Bassus. 1 Lepide mi hercules et scite Gavius Bassus in libris, quos de origine vocabulorum composuit, unde appellata "persona" sit, interpretatur; a personando enim id vocabulum factum esse coniectat. 2 Nam "caput" inquit "et os coperimento personae tectum undique unaque tantum vocis emittendae via pervium, quoniam non vaga neque diffusa est, set in unum tantummodo exitum collectam coactamque vocem ciet, magis claros canorosque sonitus facit. Quoniam igitur indumentum illud oris clarescere et resonare vocem facit, ob eam causam "persona" dicta est "o" littera propter vocabuli formam productiore."

~ "The word "personae" (...) Head and mouth are covered on all sides with the mask and the voice has only one way out. And that is neither far nor broad, but pushes the voice through in a bundled manner and thus creates clear and melodious tones. Because then this clothing of the mouth makes the voice clear and resounding, it is called persona, with a long o because of the lengthy pronunciation of this word."

Male comic theater mask Roman 2nd century CE (1)
Photographed at theTerme di Diocleziano venue of the National Museum of Rome in Rome, Italy.

https://www.heinrich-tischner.de/22-sp/2wo/wort/idg/ital/p/persona2.htm
http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/gellius/gellius5.shtml
https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198606413.001.0001/acref-9780198606413-e-3421