Knowing the Audience

In this collection of pieces on Philosophe.com, the audience is examined and some methods are discussed on how to best determine and cater to a specific audience.  Knowing your audience and knowing how to gear your site towards them is the key to creating a successful piece.  Create a website which does not suit the viewers and you won't have many viewers.

An example that came to mind while reading the article titled "Getting to know your audience", is if you made a website to provide a service to users who are impaired.  Let's say a site to help people who have vision problems, however you do not focus on your audience.  The site has small text with hard to read color schemes.  This is a bit of an extreme example but the idea is the same for any audience.  The author uses the example of buyers versus shoppers on a commercial site, and how certain protocols may be a disadvantage to the primary users.

To really know your audience, you have to follow the basic trends that are most common.  Making sure that your site is compatible with their browser and OS, the layout caters to their skill level, and the user can complete the task they set out to do.  Things such as where the user is located could drastically change how they use your site.