Every successful digital communications channel (or any other type of communications for that matter) should be underpinned by a clear understanding of the audiences it services. It is not surprising that so many sites have failed, with site owners wondering why few of their target audiences could be encouraged to use the site.
This may sound obvious, but thorough audience evaluation is rarely carried out, and site designs are therefore usually based on supposition and generalised assumptions. Often, those assumptions are wrong.
Building a clear picture of target audiences is not an option if you want your digital activities to be effective, and the process needs to be managed carefully. The scale and scope of the exercise varies according to the project, and it can be carried out in a meaningful way on every type and size of project.
For organisations or projects that are primarily focused on stakeholder audiences, 'audience mapping' can be carried out in a highly controlled way, and can deliver intelligence about the way these groups consume your services that benefits the whole organisation. In many cases, small insights (like a misunderstanding of a commonly-used internal expression) can lead to major improvements. Never assume that you know your audiences as well as you think. More importantly, never assume that they know and understand you and what you offer them.
Most stakeholders fall into a broad group we call 'information customers': most (but not all) of their requirements are centred around the need for information-based services; and the level of service they expect is as high as a customer would expect from a consumer-facing organisation.
In practice, audience mapping involves a range of activities that are all designed to first build understanding, articulate characteristics clearly, and define a series of strategic objectives and design considerations for each target group. The results feed directly into the strategic approach to each aspect of a project:
Top-level channel architecture should be constructed by understanding how different groups will need to access different types of content or service, ranging from the channel types (web, iTV, mobile, voice, etc.) to the channel structure ("…should we have a global home page and local sites? etc).
Site content should be informed by the requirements of the audiences. While an entirely 'pull' based model (i.e. only give the audience what they want or ask for) is unlikely to deliver any brand benefit, there needs to be a strong emphasis on the end-user to ensure that they feel that the content they require is obviously accessible to them.
Site structure should be formed around audience characteristics and market standards: end-users should be able to access information and services in ways obvious to them. This ranges from ensuring site areas have titles that are obvious to target audiences to grouping content into 'audience centres': places where each audience can go for the content or services they need.
Navigation is allied closely to site structure, and should perform how the target audiences expect it to. Again, market standards play a large part: there is simply no point inventing a better mousetrap when an established method works well. This does not mean that navigation should be based on so-called 'rules' like 'no page can ever be more than three clicks away': this type of design straight-jacket generally leads to bad site structure decisions and increased complexity for the end-user. Decisions on navigation can have far-reaching effects on a site, and one should never, ever over-estimate the patience of the typical end-user.
Functionality is often determined by the requirements of in-house systems or existing methodologies ('this is how we need it to work to fit into the way we work'). However, audiences behave differently online than they do in other forms of interaction with an organisation. Trying to force functionality on end-users that they are unfamiliar with, or find illogical, will either force them to use another form of communication, lead them to complain, or, more likely, drive them away entirely. Imagine a car designed from the engine's point of view, not the drivers'.
Visual language should blend brand personality with usability. It is easy to create a site that looks fantastic but is entirely inappropriate for the target audiences it should appeal to. In many ways, digital channels are the most complex application of corporate identity, needing to balance what the audiences expect from an online service with the values and aspirations for the brand itself, all in a medium that is constantly changing. This can be particularly important in stakeholder communications where audiences often have strong opinions about how the organisation should communicate with them.
Our perspective is clear: we believe in placing audiences at the heart of the design approach to every site. The information we generate from mapping audiences plays a key role in determining the strategy and design direction.
Clearly, there are many levels to which this activity can be carried out, and much, as ever, depends on the time and budget available for the project. In our experience, client teams rarely programme in sufficient time and budget initially to undertake full audience assessment. Internal (and sometimes market) pressures often demand that projects are delivered quickly, at the expense of delivering them effectively.
However, even a small amount of time spent focused on the most critical audiences will minimise risk and ensure that the budget spent on the project delivers a maximum return on investment. We have techniques that we apply to both fast-track and long-term projects that deliver varying levels of intelligence and detail, but in every case this work makes a difference.
In our view, it could be the difference between failure and a genuine success.