Audience

"Human needs should be the guide for our technologies." —Ben Shneiderman

An audience is necessary for every web page. Without an audience, there is nothing to design, no one to communicate with. Therefore, the more information that can be collected about an audience, the easier it is to make predictions about.

This information can come from demographics. "Gender, income level, age, religion, geographic location, and more, all provide valuable information about your audience -albeit in a rather sterile manner." After that information has been collected, psychological information can help figure out the motivations behind the audience--what they might be interested in, what goals they could have.

It would seem that more time should be spent on figuring out who the audience is, than on the design of the website. The two aspects obviously go hand in hand, each with equal importance.

Once the audience has been figured out, a good way to communicated with them also has to be handled. A fine line has to be discerned, between concise writing, and informational writing. From the readings, it seems the most important thing to remember is the intended message. From there, the rest of the website can be created.