Target Audience

Case Study | MFA Graduate Thesis Project

Academy of Art University Graduate School of Web Design & New Media

Week 5

Empathy: Identify the Target Audience

This week I accomplished the following in the production of my project proposal:

• Identified the target audience

• Reviewed what a persona is

• Considered where to find experts and consultants for my project

• Created a Mood Board

I have deepened my research, continued working on my project presentation, implemented the critique I have received from my professor and peers.

I created the following new slides and added them to the presentation:

• Target Audience and Target Audience Research

• Personas (three actual people in my target audience)

• Mood Board

I interviewed 30 people in my target audience. I have determined the general demographic characteristics of my target audience an identified the primary, secondary, and tertiary audience as well.

 

Personas (Three Actual People in My Target Audience)

I conducted an audience survey with three users I identified from the larger target audience of 30.

I asked my users to suggest features and identify benefits. I looked for them to give me recommendations. I tried not to lead the questioning too much or provide the answers for them.

I followed these rules of thumb during my interview process:

• Always document, take notes, and take a picture.

• Take a lot of notes and also have them fill out the survey below.

• Type up the notes and responses into your journal (make sure you provide the tester's name and other demographic information).

• Look at IDEO.org Design Kit Methods: http://www.designkit.org/methods.

• Look for example questions by Google searching "target market survey questions."

I conducted interviews in the form of a questionnaire using "Survey for Pages" to better understand my user and target audience.

I re-designed my Target Audience Survey and published it across my social media platforms to solicit responses. I had a total of 109 responses. Take my ARTS AUDIENCES SURVEY

Here are the survey questions from my survey:

1. What benefits (if any) do you see from this project? Can you identify at least three (3) ways a project like this could benefit you?
2. What features would you expect from a project like this? Can you identify at least three (3) features and rank which ones are the most important?
3. Have you used any projects similar to this? Do you see any features that are different in this project as compared to others you have seen?
4. Do you see any problems with this project? Can you identify at least one problem that you think should be taken care of?
5. Have you any final recommendations for the Project?

Moodbord

I created my Mood Board from the research I conducted and by knowing my persona's likes: The color they like, the type of images they gravitate towards, what brand attributes describe this person, etc. My mood board includes images, color swatches, and words.

I considered visual hierarchy and aimed to spark an emotional response from my viewers.

The tools I used to create my mood board are:

• Adobe InDesign
• Adobe Stock
• Adobe Fonts

 I have also started to research where I can look for subject matter experts.

 

Coming-Up Next...

Next week, I will be looking at defining the project:

• paper prototypes
• task sheets
• tips for creating paper prototypes
• testing with wireframes and paper prototypes

 

This blog will serve as a place to create my case study. I invite you to follow along with me as I journey through this process.

Thank you for reading and for your interest.

Julie A. Davis Veach