"Audience." Colorado State University's Writing Center's page on Audience. An informative and easy-to-navigate page that deals with many pertinent issues of college writing.
Becky Allen suggests this article from Umcom.org: ""Dancing with the Web" presents an explanation of audience and its importance to a website. Although the site is specifically designed for religious organizations, the suggested tips can be applied to any type of website. It also offers instructions for other areas of design, and a helpful 10 Commandment list of web design."
Marshall Annis sends this site from IBM: "This article from IBM talks about Writing for a Web audience. When creating a web site you must keep in mind that most visitors only scan the web page instead of reading it from beginning to end. This site offers ten tips to help your main point stand out when writing on the web." [See April's link below for more on the ten tips.]
Deepak Arora's link is from WritersBlock.Ca (Canada): "Tips on how to respect an audience are offered. Following this, many writing techniques are given, such as what to use and avoid. Finally, advice is given on when to force the argument."
John Fleming provides this usability site from Netcasters.com: "Netcasters, Inc. offers website assessment to make sure your website is easy to navigate. They look at the website's target audience and then have users supply criticism for the site. In the end, NetCasters
gives you suggestions on what to do to make the website easy to use."
Chris Gilmore and Jeffrey Lees send this article from SEONews.net: Chris says, "Elisabeth Osmeloski of SEO Newsnet writes a very helpful article describing the techniques that should be used to specify one's audience for website efficiency. Her two major suggestions include understanding the nature of the audience and how the content is written to appeal to that audience. As she goes into detail, I found these suggestions very helpful and may even use this site in the future." Jeffrey says, "One of the hardest things to do when creating a website is writing content to please the audiences. The audiences are the reader, search engine, and you the website owner. The website, http://www.seonews.net/articles/article23.php, which was featured in Newsnet, is designed to help in desiging websites. Hope it can help you."
Stefanie Kealey provides this article from Samizdat.com: "Richard Seltzer's article offers tips on how to make your home page appeal to a general audience. In his article, Seltzer describes two main types of audiences, hobbyists/early adopters and general users. He points to characteristics of web pages that each
group is attracted to and he argues that it is most important to attract the general users over the early adopters."
Kristy Klein's site is from Dionaea.com: "[This site] called "Web design: How to make websites that work,". . . discusses some things to consider when making a website. For example, the author mentions audience,
and knowing about who will be reading your site. In addition to this, the author mentions how both content and layout are important factors in web design."
Paul Lavoie sends this usability site from BCentral.com (U.K.): "This website entitled 'Usability issues. Make Website Navigation Easy,' is found at bCentral.uk. It shows how the improvement of navigation and usability can drastically improve the visitor's web-browsing experience. It gives an example of Marriot's Hotel implementing an improvement upon hearing complaints from its web site visitors. Presently, visitors are less frustrated because of the present ease at searching for a hotel and its rates."
Julie Lauenger provides this article from IBiblio.org: "This article inforces the importance of knowing who your intended audience is before creating a webpage. You are reminded that some audiences, such as older people might not have the latest and greatest computer, and thus to design your webpage appropriately. Lastely this article reminds you to check your webpage on various browsers, since it might look different in each."
Blake Loscalzo sends this article from TheDMCO.com: ""Getting to know your website audience," by Bridget Smyth talks about the importance of an awareness of who a website is intended for. She further discusses what can be done with the information obtained to better website effectiveness."
April Mahoney suggests this site from IBM: "Written by Constance Peterson, "Ten Web writing tips to gain your Web visitors' trust and keep them coming back for more," is a helpful article available on the IBM web site. Peterson notes that most people using the Web tend to scan and skip, rather than read entire web pages. Peterson outlines some techniques on how to get your point across, while
convincing your reader to come back to your web page." [See Marshall's annotation above for more on this site generally.]
Kevin Manoni's link is an article from Stephen Straub: "Stephen Traub, a member of the HTML Writers Guild, authors an informative article on how to broaden the audience of your web site. His biggest point was that not everyone sees the same web page. People may view a web page the way it was designed, they may not be able to see any information, or everything could look horribly unreadable. Traub offers simple techniques for allowing everyone to see your web page the way it was intended."
Sophie Moravej's link is a usability article from Unrealities.com: "In 1995, Rob Jellinghaus published this article about some of the issues that arise in website designing. He describes some of the "hurdles" and "rewards" and gives a few of his own tips. He provides links to other resources as well." Webmaster's note: Notice this is pretty dated, but still useful.
Taki Naito provides this link from George Mason University: "Http://www.gmu.edu/mlnavbar/webdev/audience.html developed by George Mason University is a guide for different intended audiences in making webpages. It is segmented to help students, faculty and staff or GMU organization and affiliates in developing webpages and guide them in what content to publish in each webpage."
Katie O'Keeffe provides this link from TandemSeven.com: "Tandem Seven is an assessment site for those who want to test the quality of their webpages before they publish them to the public. Tandem Seven offers a variety of services as usability issues and and application design. They also offer a broader range of technology services and even employment opportunities."
Michelle Spangle suggests this link from Speakeasy.org: "This site, titled "Thinking About Webpages," suggests thinking about the purpose and audience of one's webpage and designing it to reflect such
concerns. The webpage provides a series of questions, such as "who do you want to see your webpage," to use as a guide for such planning. It also lists standard sections which one should include in their site and links to further aid in the design process."
Jan Voolstra sends this usability article from NLC-BNC.ca (Canada): "George Murray and Tania Costanzo provide an overview of Usability and the Web. They give a general definition of usability, then talk about
certain issues concerning usability. They then talk about the audience and how to cater webpages to the users by using feedback as well as focus groups."
