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Usability: Audience Analysis
©1997-98, 2000 by Scribble & Count, LLC. All rights reserved.(Written 4/97; rev. 11/98)
One of the first aspects of usability is audience analysis:
- Who's Going To Use the Documentation?
- Knowledge level? (beginner, advanced, etc. in whatever skills are relevant,including language)
- Demographic profile (age, gender, nationality)?
- Mood? (enthusiastic (installation chapter), or aggravated (troubleshooting appendix)
- Why Will They Use It?
- To perform a task?
- To learn a concept?
- To solve a problem?
- For recreation or enjoyment?
- How/When/Where Will They Use It?
- stress factors
- Equipment available?
- horizontal space?
Story #1: Same Browser, Different Users
My first Website was for my company, Scribble & Count. It was late 1994; HTML 2.0 had just come out, and the only browsers were Netscape and Mosaic. I decided a newbie like me, writing in his spare time (my daytime job was a WinHelp assignment), should only tackle one browser. I chose the up-and-coming Netscape, intending to disregard Mosaic.In early December, when the site was almost ready, AOL bought O'Reilly's GNN Mosaic. I shrugged my shoulders and ignored the news: AOL at that time was a wannabe with even less clout than Prodigy or GEnie. We wouldn't be selling our services to viewers who accessed via that upstart. Ten days later, CompuServe (which still had a lot of technical credibility) bought Spyglass Mosaic. Spyglass was virtually identical to GNN - but I couldn't afford to dismiss CompuServe's installed base. I went back and revised the site, simplifying tables and changing colors.
Your conclusions can differ from mine -- but the questions shouldn't. Audience analysis is the same now as it was in '94 -- or in the days of print. It's both more important and harder now, but the essentials are the same.
Story #2: Interviewing Half the Users
A construction materials company, the national leader in 1994/95, developed a software product that designed a building; tested it architecturally; ordered the materials (theirs, of course); and printed reports for everyone involved, including the building inspector. It was a tremendous sales tool; and although it was expensive to create, they gave it (and the training to use it) away. For free. Its installed base was about 500 users, and they came from across the country for training. I wrote the printed manual and the online help, and during my nine-month contract, I ate lunch with more than half of them when they came out for training. Over pizza, I discovered:- That most were construction or clerical workers, not particularly computer-savvy -- so I added an appendix of Windows basics and beefed up the architectural design portion.
- That more than half of them had no one on site that they could ask for help - so we set up an FTP site they could send problem files to.
- That many of them needed a bill of lading - so we added another report to that module.
Story #3: No One Knew What I Should Write -- or to Whom
Virtually on the heels of the contract I just described, I agreed to write "something" for a federal government computer service. The argument boiled down to four choices: computer room procedures, business procedures, JCL coding instructions, or nothing. Even those who argued with their colleagues concerning what I should write had no idea whom I should write to. I found out that these uncertainties had scuttled two other attempts, and that I was the third writer they had contracted with. I finally did produce something - though it's hard to describe exactly what - and the entire process was extremely unpleasant for everyone.Conclusion
You can rarely obtain the information about your audience that I was lucky enough to get in my second story; but the stark contrast between it and the trauma described in #3 makes clear the importance of getting all the information you can. Given the power wielded by assertive online users, you must make every effort to identify who your audience is, and write to satisfy their goals.Top
Rev. 22-July-03
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