Designing for Multiple Audiences

Focus on the Largest Audience

Many designers choose to focus their website on the largest segment of the audience, but provide links to information for other audiences. NASA uses this approach. The home page targets a general audience with an interest in space by featuring news stories about shuttle launches, the space station, and other current events. In the left navigation column, designers include a link entitled "NASA for Kids". The link leads to a home page that is geared to elementary school-aged children.

This approach keeps the information all in one place so that it is easier to access than multiple sites, but marginalizes the second audience. Even worse, since the home page is designed for a general audience, students or other users who do not fit that audience profile may think that the site does not match their needs and may leave before finding the links created for them. If other audience types make up a significant segment of your users, a more egalitarian design might be more effective.

 

abstract, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, works cited

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