Design Document: Defining the User Experience The second section of your design document will focus on those who will be using the web site you create. In order to develop a site that will achieve the goals set out, you must understand who the site is intended for and how they are likely to use it. The User Experience section of the design document includes identifying the target audience, understanding how the audience will use the site and exploring how your competitors are representing themselves on the Web. Determining the Target Audience If we know what we want to accomplish and who we want to accomplish it with, we can design the site to appeal to that group or groups. One of the questions you asked during goal definition was who does the site benefit. The answers you received to that question should allow you to start to identify the target audience. Be cautious if indications are the site will appeal to everyone. Few sites truly appeal to a broad audience. Even those sites that do usually have different sections within that will appeal specifically to different demographics. Careful consideration of the audience will allow you to create a web site that will appeal to and be most useful to them. Consider how the following might impact your site development age gender race education geography lifestyle finances religion If you are developing for an established business and the site will be an extension of current services, their identified customer base will be your target audience. If the site may be targeting new customers, you will want to consider who those customers are. A thorough exploration of the target audience will be required if the site is of a new or untried concept. Regardless, you will need to consult your client to help in determining the target audience. You should consider meeting with all of those that provided input into forming the goals for the site. The purpose here is to create a list of all possible audiences that will have some degree of interest in the message your site will be providing. Include as many possible audiences as you can think of. Once you have a complete list of audiences, see if you can group or categorize them in any way. Rank the audiences in importance to achieving your site goals. If you figure that 10% of the visitors will be under the age of 16, there may be little point in developing content that speaks to them, at least at this early stage of development. Review the target audience(s) with the client and get agreement. Once you have client approval, you will add this information to the Design Document. For each identified target audience, state the audience and support the statement with a paragraph explaining why they are a target audience and how that target audience supports the goals of the site. This will become section 2.1 - Audience Definition. modifed: 2009-04-07