Audience Analysis & Usability
The Writing Process
Focusing and
Planning
Publishing and
Evaluating
Drafting
Arrangement
& Style
Memory
& Delivery
Assessing &
Editing
Assessing &
Evaluating
What do we do in (print)
audience analysis?
• Identify potential readers & their purposes/
motives for reading a text
• Adapt content to their needs & knowledge
• Generally take memory, delivery, arrangement for granted
What happens when audience analysis
meets new media?
• Forced to consider the affordances of delivery
form
• Encouraged to take into account haptic
features
• Best success comes from translating audience
analysis strategies to new applications: UserCentered Design (UCD)
What is user-centered design (UCD)?
• Based on international standard for humancentered design (ISO 13407)
• Analyzes contexts and content requirements
• Drafts and revises potential solutions
• Assesses effectiveness of solutions
UCD is recursive
and involves revision
Specify
context
for use
Evaluate
Designs
until
system
satisfies
specified
reqs.
Produce
Design
Solutions
Specify
Require
ments
Defining Characteristics
Emotions
Environments
• Educational
• Social
• Cultural
Values
Technology
Demographics
Audience
• Access
• Expertise
• Comfort
Audience and Purpose: Analysis Phase
•Meet with key stakeholders to set vision
•Include usability tasks in the project plan
•Assemble a multidisciplinary team to ensure complete
expertise
•Develop usability goals and objectives
•Look at competitive products (sites)
•Create user profiles
•Develop a problem statement and audience analysis
•Determine user performance requirements
Drafting: The Design Phase
•Begin to brainstorm design concepts and metaphors
•Develop screen flow and navigation model (site map)
•Begin drafting with paper and pencil
•Create low-tech prototypes
•Conduct usability testing on low-tech prototypes
•Flesh out design and content in working drafts
•Do usability testing again
• Check against purpose, needs, and constraints
Revising and Executing:
The Implementation Phase
•Do ongoing evaluations
•Work closely with team as design is implemented
•Conduct usability testing as soon as possible
•Revise as needed