Audience

Arlo and Janis

I saw this comic while crumpling newspapers to start a fire. I felt it quite fitting given our recent readings. (especially Usability and Mobile Devices)

The importance of "knowing your audience" has been drilled into me and re-drilled into me in every STC related class I've taken (lots). These articles support that knowing your audience is more than identifying them, it's understanding their motives, goals, capabilities, and  their technical skills; you must consider more than the personal attributes of your audience members you need to know their situations, environment, and conditions under which they will be interacting with your deliverable. How will the layout of your website match the environment, skill level and personality of your audience? What variables exist within your audience different browsers? So much about your primary audience, secondary audience, and tertiary audience should impact your design choices. I feel the philosophe readings helped illustrate potential audience variables and the pros and cons of categorizing your audience at the different levels of web development. 

The Google piece and our recent discussions really brought to my attention, the fact that I know very little about the Internet, Web, technology in general that I surround myself with on a daily basis. I wanted the article to tell me all the secrets of Google! I want to know more! I understand that not all search engines are created equal. I pretty much always use Google, because how else would I Google something. I appreciate the competition between search engines for my searches, I appreciate that Google finds dominance of the market to cause to relax. It will be interesting to see whats next.