Who is your audience?
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If we are talking about public websites, which is the main theme of this resource, then obviously the potential audience is everyone. This makes most web publishers lazy! Why? Because when most of us say everyone, in relation to communication, we mean ourselves, and as a result we structure, write, design and test as though we were the audience — this is of course dangerous and flawed thinking.
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As a web publisher, what are you trying to achieve?
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If you have been through the business worksheet and the media worksheet then you will have already given some considered thought to what you are trying to achieve with your website (or your part within it). Now we need to consider, and add to our strategic thinking, who our audience 'really' are. Who are the people that form the target group(s) that we need to appeal to, in order to achieve our business and website objectives. More specifically, we need to empathize with our audience(s) so that we can make our content resonate for them. We need to ask some other questions in order to stop creating content for ourselves.
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Who is your audience?
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Define the group(s) of people that you want to appeal to and the group of people that are likely to want what you have to offer. If they are the same, that makes life easier, if they are different, then at some level you need to address both groups, while focusing your efforts on the intersection – the group that you want and want you in return. Obvious? Then why does almost every website get this wrong? Perhaps it may be obvious, but it is harder than it seems and as a result, most people go back to addressing themselves as the audience.
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Why are they visiting your website?
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What is your defined audience looking for? Are you planning to offer it? Two more deceptively difficult questions. You are going to need to make some assumptions and perhaps research what your selected audience is after – and you probably won't be able to address everything. Once you manage to attract the audience to your website, a topic for later, are you going to address their expectations or are you trying to get them to do something other than what they anticipated doing? If you are not delivering on expectations you are in dangerous territory, as trust and patience are in short supply with web consumers and another website is just a click away.
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What do you want the audience to do?
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How are you going to get them to do it? What do you need to do? What does the audience already know? Will they appreciate and perhaps more importantly act upon your instructions? Feel like going back to addressing yourself — don't. If you get all of this right, you will achieve your results and help your audience achieve theirs at the same time.
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Some things to consider about your audience ...
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Cognitive overload — avoiding visitor confusion and focusing on the key elements.
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Accepted practice — what the audience already knows and expects.
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Elegant variation — making your site interesting, engaging visitors and supporting your message.
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Content consumption — how audiences usually consume web content (patterns and behaviors).
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F-pattern hot-spots — research on consumption patterns and where to put your key elements.
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Cognitive dissonance — what happens when your site doesn't match visitor expectations.
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Classes of sites — common types of websites (brochure, transactional, functional and portal).
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Audience worksheet — take a moment to think about your own website and it's audience.
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These topic pages go into more detail on how your website audience might behave and underpin the discussion on design, structure, content, message and site effectiveness within this resource.
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