Understanding Your Audience

Methods of Researching the Audience

There are a number of ways to find out who the target audience or customers are and to discover their wants and needs. Research methods vary according to the type of medium you are working in, but timescale, budget and project size will largely determine how much time can be spent on audience research and will determine the method.

• It is important to think about who the audience are, in particular their age group, and begin to look at similar material to that which you are hoping to produce for the same target group. This may involve reading magazines, visiting websites, reading papers and just listening to what people are saying around you
  
• Talk to people of the same age and find out what works for them and what doesn't that is currently available and try to identify gaps in the market
  
• Collect press cuttings, headlines, pictures, anything relevant to the area you are researching and bring that all together to get a feel for who the audience are and the types of design that would communicate with them or appeal to them
  
• Think about styles, fonts and colours regardless of the media you will be working with to influence your design or look
  
• Many producers can benefit from having previous experience working with similar markets so to an extent it may be fairly intuitive

We do everything you could possibly imagine. The budget normally defines how much we can do. On the smaller scale it would be a case of doing something really cheap and quick, but I think it's better to do that than nothing at all, and it might be a case of phoning a few friends and saying what do you think about this? That's the very basic level. Our larger projects have got a whole audience intelligence programme. Dominique Lee

Certain areas may need specific in depth research, particularly if the information will form part of a pitch to a broadcaster or large client. This research is often commissioned because there may not be enough time for a small team at the initial stages to undertake such a task.

In some instances broadcasters will carry out research themselves into a specific area before approaching production companies with a brief. In other cases experts will be consulted at various stages of a project to gain a deeper insight into a subject or area.

Most clients will have some knowledge of their audience or user so they can also be a good source of information, often holding reports or marketing data.

Quite a lot of the time customers will come with a fairly good idea of who their audience are and a really well informed client will come over with some quite sophisticated methods of being able to do that. We'd engage in market research if we're trying to establish who the person is and that's the very first part, it's not just what motivates that person, we try to work out personas on these people to try and get a real feel for the way in which they're going to react to the kind of communications we're hoping to impose on them. Grant Campbell

The budget defines how much audience research can be done, though many producers would rather put in additional time to ensure that they get it right.

Common sense can play a part in determining who the audience is, for example if it is a project about very young children, it stands to reason that the target audience will be formed in part by their parents, particularly mothers. Thinking practically can often give you a good starting point.

Audience figures can give a realistic view of how well a programme was received, as can website hits. Once this information has been obtained it can be interpreted and applied to a project to make any necessary changes and improve the chances of success.

Very basic research can be useful if the budget doesn't allow much time:

• Phone contacts or people you know
• Talk informally to people
• Familiarise yourself with similar products, programmes or services and form your own opinions about what you think users want or what you felt didn't work about a particular existing design

If a substantial amount of time is allocated to audience research some of the following methods may be employed:

• Audience intelligence programmes
• User consultations
• Surveys and questionnaires
• Interviews: One to One, and Group
• Concept Testing: Focus groups, Observation, Market Research

Usage studies can give a clearer picture of how technology is actually used in reality by real customers and usability testing at an early stage may also be beneficial. Usability testing is generally used further on in the production process but can be carried out at any point where you feel it will be useful.

It is important to remember that the design, site or programme needs to be built for a specific audience in order to succeed. This group of people must be identified at the outset and the project continually reassessed in terms of adequately meeting their needs.