Who is the audience?

Who is the audience?

by Sylvia Currie -
Number of replies: 12
Trevor asks an important question that we shouldn't let slide away:

I think that our website must have an intended audience. How do we go about discovering who this audience will be?

Thanks for bringing us back to a basic design question, Trevor! It's easy to say "the public" and "anybody who is interested", but is it possible to be all inclusive?


In reply to Sylvia Currie

Re: Who is the audience?

by Deirdre Bonnycastle -
I think the first question is "Who is your current audience?"

Educators from around the world
  • primarily working with adults
  • some instructional designers
  • some university faculty
  • some ed technologists
  • some contract trainers
  • some graduate students
  • ???

In reply to Deirdre Bonnycastle

Re: Who is the audience?

by Sylvia Currie -
I'd say you've captured the current audience very well, Deirdre! A quick tour through profiles I see we also have:
  • community moderator/coordinator/steward types
  • business owners
  • workplace elearning consultants
  • library media specialist
  • k-12 educators
We're also representing several countries: Canada, Spain, US, Netherlands, Brazil, UK...I may have missed some.
In reply to Sylvia Currie

Re: Who is the audience?

by Colby Stuart -
We might even want to ask the questions:

What purpose could we serve for different profiled groups?
What roles could we play in serving that purpose?
What value could we create in doing that?

This would put us on a path of learning what creates meaning for these different groups of people. It would also help us see gaps or openings.
In reply to Colby Stuart

Re: Who is the audience?

by Don McIntosh -
The discussion of audience and objectives is very useful. It is interesting the assumptions that we make when these are not articulated and recorded.

For example, I had assumed that this project would have a uniquely Canadian perspective and, while that might be interesting, it may not be the intention at all.
In reply to Don McIntosh

Re: Who is the audience?

by Sylvia Currie -
I think we always have a tendency to fill in the blanks with our assumptions, and there are a lot of blanks! When we first started talking about this project the topic of a Canadian focus for the museum came up. We never did decide on the scope of the museum project. Actually, we didn't decide on much, except that we wanted to open up the conversation to everybody and build this together!

A Canadian museum or a Canadian collection within a larger museum?



In reply to Sylvia Currie

Re: Who is the audience?

by Christine Horgan -

Sylvia:

Most participants to SCoPE seem to be Canadian. We're never very good at tooting our own horn, so perhaps this exercise provides us with an opportunity to see the value in the skills, knowledge, experience we have within Canada.

Perhaps the emphasis could be directed to home-grown materials.

having said that, I see no reason to exclude artifacts from other cultures. How about a Canadian museum with "other" collections?

Chris

In reply to Christine Horgan

Re: Who is the audience?

by George Siemens -
Hi Christine - good point about the "lack of horn tooting" on the part of Canadians. Canada took an initial leading role in online learning. We are, after all, a country with a small distributed population over a large geographical region (just in case you're not aware of that :)). We've partly seen our leading role diminished as other nations became more focused in forming national initiatives.

Depending on how we set up the final resource, we may be able to allow resource viewing on multiple dimensions - i.e. Canadian, European, etc. In week 3 we tackle the technical or structural question...please re-introduce it then if we overlook it!

George
In reply to Sylvia Currie

Re: Who is the audience?

by f b -
hi all,

I have been thinking about the question: Who is the target audience? My automatic answer is: English speakers only. This has been the first characteristic (implicit) of the audience -so far-. Probably we could add more characteristics to the audience.

Cheers,

Arcadio -

p.s. Here are other two museums from a different culture; Museo Nacional de Antropologia e Historia in Mexico City.

In reply to f b

Re: Who is the audience?

by Cynthia Alvarado -
I find it very interesting that The Museo National has its website in English. There is really no reason, in this diverse group, that we could not also use resources in other languages.
In reply to Cynthia Alvarado

Re: Who is the audience?

by Richard Schwier -
Agreed, Cynthia. We can accept and accommodate any language that material is submitted in. We don't have a budget, so we couldn't get into translation services, of course, but i do hope we receive materials from around the world in whatever language people use.
In reply to Richard Schwier

Re: Who is the audience?

by Cynthia Alvarado -
I am sure, some of us, myself included, would be able to take on translation projects over time, if nothing comparable is available in some major in some major language like French or Spanish. (I'm only reliable in Spanish.)
In reply to f b

Re: Who is the audience?

by Deirdre Bonnycastle -

Good point Arcadio,

I belong to a Spanish site for physicians that has a translation button for people like me who only speak English. It works OK 80% of the time but it was very expensive to create.