Audience analysis
Encyclopedia
Audience analysis is a task that is often performed by technical writer
s in a project's early stages. It consists of assessing the audience to make sure the information provided to them is at the appropriate level. The audience is often referred to as the end-user
, and all communications need to be targeted towards the defined audience. Defining an audience requires the consideration of many factors, such as age
, culture
and knowledge of the subject. After considering all the known factors, a profile of the intended audience can be created, allowing writers to write in a manner that is understood by the intended audience.
, written, or visual communication.
There are numerous methods that a technical communicator can use to conduct the analysis. Because the task of completing an audience analysis can be overwhelming, using a multi-pronged approach to conduct the analysis is recommended by most professors, often yielding improved accuracy and efficiency. Michael Albers suggests that an analysis use several independent dimensions that work together, such as reader knowledge of the topic and reader cognitive ability.
Writers can also use conversation to help them to complete an audience analysis. Conversation allows the communicator to consider the multiple cultural, disciplinary, and institutional contexts of their target audience, producing a valuable audience analysis.
David L. Carson of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
asserted that technical communicators must often perform their jobs with little or no knowledge about their audience. As a result, audience analyses address a fictional audience. Carson asserts that the communicator's image of any particular audience is a figment of the communicator's imagination. Ideally, the technical communicator would be able to control a project from inception through dissemination. Carson states that the analysis should include a reader's level of comprehension of the technical vocabulary and motivation, as well as reading level. Indicators of a reader's high level of motivation include high interest in in the subject matter, relatively high knowledge of the content, and high personal stakes in mastering the information.
Another technique used to conduct an audience analysis is the "bottom-up" approach. Leon de Stadler and Sarah van der Land explore this type of approach in reference to a document produced by an organization that develops different kinds of interventions in the field of HIV
/AIDS
education
. This particular document focused on the use of contraception
and targeted the black
youth
of South Africa
. The initial document was created by document designers in the United States
who did not base their design on an extensive audience analysis. As a result, the document, which used the informal slang of black South African youth, did not effectively communicate with its target audience. After the dissemination of the document, Van der Land used focus groups and interview
s of a sample of the target audience to discover what improvements should be made. Upon considering the audience's perspective, she found that the initial document's use of the hip-style language backfired. The interviewees indicated that the use of the popular language was not effective because it was not used correctly or consistently throughout the document. Additionally, to the target audience, the informal language did not fit the seriousness of the topic being discussed. The suggested "bottom-up" approach should have incorporated the target audience during the design process in stead of as an afterthought. Most technical communicators approach an audience analysis from the "top-down," which usually ignores the vital input from the intended audience. The authors of this article acknowledge the potential cost of time and money that the "bottom-up" approach presents; however, they believe that the time and money would be best spent on the production of a quality, effective document than spent on attempting to rectify the production of a bad design.
Marjorie Rush Hovde provides even more tactics that can be implemented in the process of an audience analysis in relation to one's organization. She suggests talking with users during phone support
calls, interacting with users face-to-face, drawing on the writer's own experiences with the software and documentation, interacting with use-contact people within the organization, studying responses sent from users after the documentation is released, and conducting internal user-testing. Like Michael Albers, Hovde asserts that the use of a combination of tactics proves to produce a more accurate audience analysis than using one tactic alone.
Karen D. Holl discusses what writers should consider when writing papers that address an international audience. She focuses on those writers who attempt to publish studies in publications that are circulated abroad. She suggests that these writers consider the following questions when framing their papers: What conclusions from my study would be relevant and novel to land managers and scientists working in other ecosystems and socio-economic contexts?, What is the geographic scope of the literature I am citing?, To which ecological and socio-economic systems do my world view and results apply?, Is my study sufficiently well replicated to generalize my results?, and Are my conclusions supported by my data and, conversely, are all my data necessary to support my conclusions?. Although she focuses her suggestions on scientific studies, she acknowledges that "what is critical to effectively communicate the results of any study is to consider what conclusions will be of most interest to the target audience." Holl concludes that knowing how to address an international audience is a vital skill that successful scientists, as well as technical communicators, must possess.
ly manner, is vital to the technical communication
process. The depth of the audience analysis also depends of the size of the intended audience.
Because people constantly change in terms of technological exposure, the audience to be analyzed constantly changes. As a result, the technical communicator must consider the possibility that their audience changes over time. An article in the European Journal of Communication
that examined the change audience research has experienced due to the growing range of information and communication technologies pointed out that there are three main challenges that drive the search for methodological rigor: the difference between what people say they do and what they do in practice, the interpretation of the text by the reader, and why the received meanings of television matter in everyday life. An absolutely perfect audience analysis is generally impossible to create, and it is similarly difficult to create an analysis that is relevant for a long period of time. Revising and rewriting an audience analysis is often required in order to maintain the relevance of the analysis.
in their article "Warnings in Manufacturing: Improving Hazard-Mitigation Messaging through Audience Analysis." In this study, they focused on the potential role of latent class analysis in regards to the audience analysis performed in hazard communication and warning messages. Their qualitative study involved 700 adult and adolescent participants who answered a structured questionnaire about prescription medication history, prescription medication loaning/borrowing history, and likelihood of sharing/borrowing medication. With this information, four latent classes were identified: Abstainers, Pragmatic frequent sharers, At-risk sharers, and Emergency sharers. The identification of latent classes based on behaviors of interest facilitated tailoring hazard-mitigation efforts to specific groups. Although their study is limited, in that all participants were between the ages of twelve and forty-four and were from heavily populated urban area (so the generalizability of the data to rural settings has not been generated), this study establishes that latent class analysis can play a vital role. They conclude that latent analysis is a worthwhile addition to the analytical toolbox because it allows, in this case, risk reduction and hazard-mitigation efforts to tailor interventions to a diverse target audience. For the technical writer, analyzing latent classes would enable them to better identify homogenous groups within the broader population of readers and across many variables to tailor messages to these better-specified groups.
The population of older adults is growing, and Gail Lippincott asserts that technical communicators have not accounted for the needs of these audiences, nor drawn from the wide range of research on aging. In her article, "Gray Matters: Where are the Technical Communicator in Research and Design for Aging Audiences?," Lippincott suggests four challenges that practitioners, educators, and researchers must undertake to accommodate older adults' physical, cognitive, and emotional needs: They must refine the demographic variable of age, operationalize age to enrich current methods of audience analysis, investigate multidisciplinary sources of aging research, and participate in research on aging by offering our expertise in document design and communication strategies. Lippincot acknowledges that there is so much more research that must be done in this area, for "the body of literature on older adults and computer use is relatively small." Lippincott provides insight into an often overlooked audience that technical communicators must learn to address.
Teresa Lipus argues that devoting company resources to produce adequate instructions for international users is both practical and ethical. She also provides a brief overview of the consumer protection measures that leading U.S. trade partners have implemented. She also presents the following guidelines for developing adequate instructions for international audiences: 1) define the scope of the instructions, 2) identify the audience, 3) describe the product's functions and limitations, 4) identify the constraints, and 5) use durable materials. She offers tips for getting and keeping the attention of the audience. These tips are 1) organize the information, 2) structure the information, and 3) design the page layout. For aiding the comprehension of the readers, Lipus suggests that technical communicators write readable texts and design effective graphics. In an effort to motivate compliance, she says to make the instructions relevant and credible and to improve user recall of the information by organizing the information into small meaningful groups and providing concise summaries and on-product reminders. When presenting safety information, Lipus says to not only include the necessary safety messages but to also design effective safety messages. Before distributing instructions, they must be evaluated. She recommends testing the product and the accuracy of the instructions, communicating using means that reach users, and continuing to test and to inform users even after marketing. She explains that because the potential for making subtle but offensive errors is so high in international dealings, a language-sensitive native speaker from the target culture should always review the instructions before they are distributed to consumers. Although Lipus provides information in analyzing and writing for an international audience regarding consumer protection, the strategies offered can be applied to document preparation in general.
Jenni Swenson, Helen Constantinides, and Laura Gurak, in their case study, address the problem of defining medical web site credibility and identifying the gap in web design research that fails to recognize or address specific audience needs in web site design. The information they gathered assisted the researchers in identifying and fulfilling specific audience needs, describing a framework, and presenting a case study in audience-driven Web design. The researchers used the qualitative method of conducting a survey to find the audience of the Algenix, Inc. Web site. Algenix is a biomedical liver disease management company. The study showed that an audience-driven design would do more to reassure the audience that personal information would not be collected without consent as well as provide clear policies of security, privacy, and data collection. The survey informed the researchers that the audience would also like to experience a site with minimal graphics and short download times and one that is intuitive and easy to navigate. This study illustrates how an audience analysis should not only address what the users are able to do but also what they, as the users, would prefer.
In the article "Real Readers, Implied Readers, and Professional Writers: Suggested Research," Charlotte Thralls, Nancy Roundy Blyler, and Helen Rothschild Ewald of Iowa State University define "real readers" versus "implied readers." The real reader is a concrete reality and determines the writer's purpose and persona. A writer who perceives an audience as real tends to conceive of readers as living persons with specific attitudes and demographic characteristics. Therefore, the writer's task is to accommodate the real reader by analyzing this reader's needs and deferring to them. The implied reader, on the other hand, is a mental construct or role which the actual reader is invited to enter, even though the characteristics embodied in that role may not perfectly fit his or her attitudes or reactions. When the reader is implied, the writer invents and determines the audience within the text. The researchers assert that writers must appreciate the complex interplay that may take place between the real and implied representations of the reader in every document. The researchers discuss how their study was conducted for the sole purpose of developing a hypothesis for further study: Are professional writers aware of real and implied readers; does a writer's way of perceiving a reader affect contextual development; do shifts occur in writers' conceptions of readers; are writers' perceptions of readers linked to a sense of genre and explained by principles of cognitive processing?
Technical writer
A technical writer is a professional writer who designs, creates, and maintains technical documentation...
s in a project's early stages. It consists of assessing the audience to make sure the information provided to them is at the appropriate level. The audience is often referred to as the end-user
End-user
Economics and commerce define an end user as the person who uses a product. The end user or consumer may differ from the person who purchases the product...
, and all communications need to be targeted towards the defined audience. Defining an audience requires the consideration of many factors, such as age
Age
Age may refer to:* Age , an aspect of mathematical model theory* Age , an international peer-reviewed journal operated by Springer.* The Age, a daily newspaper published in Melbourne, Australia* Agé, a god* Åge, a given name...
, culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
and knowledge of the subject. After considering all the known factors, a profile of the intended audience can be created, allowing writers to write in a manner that is understood by the intended audience.
Process
Audience analysis involves gathering and interpreting information about the recipients of oralOral
The word oral may refer to:As an adjective:* the mouth, the first portion of the alimentary canal that receives food and saliva* speech communication as opposed to writing* oral administration of medicines...
, written, or visual communication.
There are numerous methods that a technical communicator can use to conduct the analysis. Because the task of completing an audience analysis can be overwhelming, using a multi-pronged approach to conduct the analysis is recommended by most professors, often yielding improved accuracy and efficiency. Michael Albers suggests that an analysis use several independent dimensions that work together, such as reader knowledge of the topic and reader cognitive ability.
Writers can also use conversation to help them to complete an audience analysis. Conversation allows the communicator to consider the multiple cultural, disciplinary, and institutional contexts of their target audience, producing a valuable audience analysis.
David L. Carson of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Stephen Van Rensselaer established the Rensselaer School on November 5, 1824 with a letter to the Rev. Dr. Samuel Blatchford, in which van Rensselaer asked Blatchford to serve as the first president. Within the letter he set down several orders of business. He appointed Amos Eaton as the school's...
asserted that technical communicators must often perform their jobs with little or no knowledge about their audience. As a result, audience analyses address a fictional audience. Carson asserts that the communicator's image of any particular audience is a figment of the communicator's imagination. Ideally, the technical communicator would be able to control a project from inception through dissemination. Carson states that the analysis should include a reader's level of comprehension of the technical vocabulary and motivation, as well as reading level. Indicators of a reader's high level of motivation include high interest in in the subject matter, relatively high knowledge of the content, and high personal stakes in mastering the information.
Another technique used to conduct an audience analysis is the "bottom-up" approach. Leon de Stadler and Sarah van der Land explore this type of approach in reference to a document produced by an organization that develops different kinds of interventions in the field of HIV
HIV
Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...
/AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
. This particular document focused on the use of contraception
Contraception
Contraception is the prevention of the fusion of gametes during or after sexual activity. The term contraception is a contraction of contra, which means against, and the word conception, meaning fertilization...
and targeted the black
Black
Black is the color of objects that do not emit or reflect light in any part of the visible spectrum; they absorb all such frequencies of light...
youth
Youth
Youth is the time of life between childhood and adulthood . Definitions of the specific age range that constitutes youth vary. An individual's actual maturity may not correspond to their chronological age, as immature individuals could exist at all ages.-Usage:Around the world, the terms "youth",...
of South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
. The initial document was created by document designers in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
who did not base their design on an extensive audience analysis. As a result, the document, which used the informal slang of black South African youth, did not effectively communicate with its target audience. After the dissemination of the document, Van der Land used focus groups and interview
Interview
An interview is a conversation between two people where questions are asked by the interviewer to obtain information from the interviewee.- Interview as a Method for Qualitative Research:"Definition" -...
s of a sample of the target audience to discover what improvements should be made. Upon considering the audience's perspective, she found that the initial document's use of the hip-style language backfired. The interviewees indicated that the use of the popular language was not effective because it was not used correctly or consistently throughout the document. Additionally, to the target audience, the informal language did not fit the seriousness of the topic being discussed. The suggested "bottom-up" approach should have incorporated the target audience during the design process in stead of as an afterthought. Most technical communicators approach an audience analysis from the "top-down," which usually ignores the vital input from the intended audience. The authors of this article acknowledge the potential cost of time and money that the "bottom-up" approach presents; however, they believe that the time and money would be best spent on the production of a quality, effective document than spent on attempting to rectify the production of a bad design.
Marjorie Rush Hovde provides even more tactics that can be implemented in the process of an audience analysis in relation to one's organization. She suggests talking with users during phone support
Customer support
Customer support is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product....
calls, interacting with users face-to-face, drawing on the writer's own experiences with the software and documentation, interacting with use-contact people within the organization, studying responses sent from users after the documentation is released, and conducting internal user-testing. Like Michael Albers, Hovde asserts that the use of a combination of tactics proves to produce a more accurate audience analysis than using one tactic alone.
Karen D. Holl discusses what writers should consider when writing papers that address an international audience. She focuses on those writers who attempt to publish studies in publications that are circulated abroad. She suggests that these writers consider the following questions when framing their papers: What conclusions from my study would be relevant and novel to land managers and scientists working in other ecosystems and socio-economic contexts?, What is the geographic scope of the literature I am citing?, To which ecological and socio-economic systems do my world view and results apply?, Is my study sufficiently well replicated to generalize my results?, and Are my conclusions supported by my data and, conversely, are all my data necessary to support my conclusions?. Although she focuses her suggestions on scientific studies, she acknowledges that "what is critical to effectively communicate the results of any study is to consider what conclusions will be of most interest to the target audience." Holl concludes that knowing how to address an international audience is a vital skill that successful scientists, as well as technical communicators, must possess.
Depth of analyses
There are often a large number of factors to consider, thus making it hard for the writer to completely assess the target audience within a reasonable amount of time. Therefore, an attempt to reach the most accurate and effective audience analysis, in a timeTime
Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....
ly manner, is vital to the technical communication
Communication
Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...
process. The depth of the audience analysis also depends of the size of the intended audience.
Because people constantly change in terms of technological exposure, the audience to be analyzed constantly changes. As a result, the technical communicator must consider the possibility that their audience changes over time. An article in the European Journal of Communication
European Journal of Communication
European Journal of Communication is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal that covers research on communications and media. The journal was established in 1986 and covers all aspects of communication research and theory.- Abstracting and indexing :...
that examined the change audience research has experienced due to the growing range of information and communication technologies pointed out that there are three main challenges that drive the search for methodological rigor: the difference between what people say they do and what they do in practice, the interpretation of the text by the reader, and why the received meanings of television matter in everyday life. An absolutely perfect audience analysis is generally impossible to create, and it is similarly difficult to create an analysis that is relevant for a long period of time. Revising and rewriting an audience analysis is often required in order to maintain the relevance of the analysis.
Specific Applications of Audience Analysis
R. C. Goldworthy, C. B. Mayhorn and A. W. Meade, dealt with the hazard mitigation, including warning development, validation, and dissemination as an important aspect of product safety and workplace and consumer protectionConsumer protection
Consumer protection laws designed to ensure fair trade competition and the free flow of truthful information in the marketplace. The laws are designed to prevent businesses that engage in fraud or specified unfair practices from gaining an advantage over competitors and may provide additional...
in their article "Warnings in Manufacturing: Improving Hazard-Mitigation Messaging through Audience Analysis." In this study, they focused on the potential role of latent class analysis in regards to the audience analysis performed in hazard communication and warning messages. Their qualitative study involved 700 adult and adolescent participants who answered a structured questionnaire about prescription medication history, prescription medication loaning/borrowing history, and likelihood of sharing/borrowing medication. With this information, four latent classes were identified: Abstainers, Pragmatic frequent sharers, At-risk sharers, and Emergency sharers. The identification of latent classes based on behaviors of interest facilitated tailoring hazard-mitigation efforts to specific groups. Although their study is limited, in that all participants were between the ages of twelve and forty-four and were from heavily populated urban area (so the generalizability of the data to rural settings has not been generated), this study establishes that latent class analysis can play a vital role. They conclude that latent analysis is a worthwhile addition to the analytical toolbox because it allows, in this case, risk reduction and hazard-mitigation efforts to tailor interventions to a diverse target audience. For the technical writer, analyzing latent classes would enable them to better identify homogenous groups within the broader population of readers and across many variables to tailor messages to these better-specified groups.
The population of older adults is growing, and Gail Lippincott asserts that technical communicators have not accounted for the needs of these audiences, nor drawn from the wide range of research on aging. In her article, "Gray Matters: Where are the Technical Communicator in Research and Design for Aging Audiences?," Lippincott suggests four challenges that practitioners, educators, and researchers must undertake to accommodate older adults' physical, cognitive, and emotional needs: They must refine the demographic variable of age, operationalize age to enrich current methods of audience analysis, investigate multidisciplinary sources of aging research, and participate in research on aging by offering our expertise in document design and communication strategies. Lippincot acknowledges that there is so much more research that must be done in this area, for "the body of literature on older adults and computer use is relatively small." Lippincott provides insight into an often overlooked audience that technical communicators must learn to address.
Teresa Lipus argues that devoting company resources to produce adequate instructions for international users is both practical and ethical. She also provides a brief overview of the consumer protection measures that leading U.S. trade partners have implemented. She also presents the following guidelines for developing adequate instructions for international audiences: 1) define the scope of the instructions, 2) identify the audience, 3) describe the product's functions and limitations, 4) identify the constraints, and 5) use durable materials. She offers tips for getting and keeping the attention of the audience. These tips are 1) organize the information, 2) structure the information, and 3) design the page layout. For aiding the comprehension of the readers, Lipus suggests that technical communicators write readable texts and design effective graphics. In an effort to motivate compliance, she says to make the instructions relevant and credible and to improve user recall of the information by organizing the information into small meaningful groups and providing concise summaries and on-product reminders. When presenting safety information, Lipus says to not only include the necessary safety messages but to also design effective safety messages. Before distributing instructions, they must be evaluated. She recommends testing the product and the accuracy of the instructions, communicating using means that reach users, and continuing to test and to inform users even after marketing. She explains that because the potential for making subtle but offensive errors is so high in international dealings, a language-sensitive native speaker from the target culture should always review the instructions before they are distributed to consumers. Although Lipus provides information in analyzing and writing for an international audience regarding consumer protection, the strategies offered can be applied to document preparation in general.
Jenni Swenson, Helen Constantinides, and Laura Gurak, in their case study, address the problem of defining medical web site credibility and identifying the gap in web design research that fails to recognize or address specific audience needs in web site design. The information they gathered assisted the researchers in identifying and fulfilling specific audience needs, describing a framework, and presenting a case study in audience-driven Web design. The researchers used the qualitative method of conducting a survey to find the audience of the Algenix, Inc. Web site. Algenix is a biomedical liver disease management company. The study showed that an audience-driven design would do more to reassure the audience that personal information would not be collected without consent as well as provide clear policies of security, privacy, and data collection. The survey informed the researchers that the audience would also like to experience a site with minimal graphics and short download times and one that is intuitive and easy to navigate. This study illustrates how an audience analysis should not only address what the users are able to do but also what they, as the users, would prefer.
In the article "Real Readers, Implied Readers, and Professional Writers: Suggested Research," Charlotte Thralls, Nancy Roundy Blyler, and Helen Rothschild Ewald of Iowa State University define "real readers" versus "implied readers." The real reader is a concrete reality and determines the writer's purpose and persona. A writer who perceives an audience as real tends to conceive of readers as living persons with specific attitudes and demographic characteristics. Therefore, the writer's task is to accommodate the real reader by analyzing this reader's needs and deferring to them. The implied reader, on the other hand, is a mental construct or role which the actual reader is invited to enter, even though the characteristics embodied in that role may not perfectly fit his or her attitudes or reactions. When the reader is implied, the writer invents and determines the audience within the text. The researchers assert that writers must appreciate the complex interplay that may take place between the real and implied representations of the reader in every document. The researchers discuss how their study was conducted for the sole purpose of developing a hypothesis for further study: Are professional writers aware of real and implied readers; does a writer's way of perceiving a reader affect contextual development; do shifts occur in writers' conceptions of readers; are writers' perceptions of readers linked to a sense of genre and explained by principles of cognitive processing?
External links
- Wikiversity Technical Writing course
- http://www.wsu.edu/~amerstu/pop/audience.html