The Targets

This article is crucial for us as web designers to pay attention to. Pleasing our audience, or users, is what we make the websites for. We aim at certain groups of people for example a website for a University should be aiming towards high school students and parents. Most University sites try to put pictures of students having fun or quietly studying across their pages to interest the high school students searching for a school as well as please the parents with their choice. The website is usually very clean cut and easy to maneuver through to find all information the user is looking for. They are our audience, rather our targets. We can not forget about the rest of the users that would also being using our sites though.

The article brings up a huge point that I never thought twice about, how do we categorize our audiences? We as designers can see one audience completely differently than someone else does. Not only does it stay within just the designers but also the people with a different role in the website; such as marketers. Chances of them having different views are very likely. The article also tackles HOW a user will interact with the website. Will they have a forum to discuss problems or ideas? Will they just be able to read what is there? Will they be able to contribute to the website, such as Wikipedia? It is all something we as designers need to consider when putting together a site, which you need to take on with an open mind.