“You always need to take your audience into consideration before you start designing (or at least some point in the process). For example, why would you design a website to use the latest html5/css3 techniques when the entire company you’re working for uses IE6?”

“Short answer: very.

Long answer: right now I’m working on a site for retirement communities. Target audience is elderly and their children (boomers/late boomers). So, key features are large fonts, super-simple navigation–no drop downs, and homey secure feeling.

Quite a different audience than my designer eyewear client. The eyewear client certainly serves some of the same members as the retirement community client, yes–but the overall feel had to be much different–modern, hip, trendy, and with a few little ‘Easter eggs’ to find within site.

So the design differences are not only seen in fonts, colors and layouts–but also in basic usability features and AJAX events.”

“Great question and quote!

First there is the reality that your audience will not only be your customers but also your client. Some would disagree but it has been my experience, and in the end they are the real customer even when results are to be expected. In the past I have been able to successfully identify and communicate to some customers when they are not part of the target audience. Sounds absurd but there are cases like this.

Back to the question.

It is very important to know and identify the target audience to have an advantage between all the clutter and competition. Even study the media in which it will be applied and how will the end customer reach us. Many customers have researched their target audience, but doing some anthropological studies of your own will bring a better understanding of behavior, use, response, visibility, perception, competition, clarity of message and availability. The strategy is to reach the target audience and promote a positive response on behalf of the customer.

When designing I take into account:
1. the clients identity and message
2. the target audience or possible target
3. results expected (goal)
4. media chosen for placement
5. culture and demographics

And yes, there will be differences because of this.
Hope I was of some help!”

“As a graphic designer I’m tempted to say that audience is everything! If it’s not, then aren’t you doing it [only? merely?] for yourself? I suppose that as a responsible creator, you do have to please yourself in the process, especially with a client trusting you to communicate the less concrete aspects of a design, but still …

There may be times when the audience, or the representation of the audience, is unwelcomed. For instance if the client I’m working for likes to characterize the audience as having a certain taste, such as “they’re engineers – engineers don’t want that fancy stuff.” Depending on the client and the project, I may not put up a big fight, but I’ll still design “subversively” because my audience is likely a human audience and most all of us like to be romanced a bit, presented to and not just presented at.”

“Absolutely. Knowing who your audience is, is a key factor when working on a design project. Creating a design is not making something pretty or even useful,its solving a problem by communicating visually, using art and technology. You have to know what or who you are communication to. If a project is started without knowing who the target audience is it would be a like navigating a car blindfolded. You can move the car forward, but you will eventually crash.”

“The first step is to define the design audience. The design audience is the people who have been in contact with your work as a designer. The design work is web design or printed design, as well as, industrial design. A large and wide possibility. I am going to refer my answer to the web design audience as the people the designer choose as an audience a priori.When you design something, you must keep in mind where you want to direct your objectives, maybe your targeted audience can be some special kind of customers. Or maybe and taking a lot of web posts from the last months, you want to design for an international audience.

In both cases, the audience is important. That is why I think networking is a powerful tool to generate an audience where maybe it does not even exists one. If you designed your site oriented to an specific audience and in the way and through the years or months your audience change, you can change too. We are changing creatures and we have to change with the movement of the human ocean. I think adaptability is the key.”

“I think it is highly important to design towards the audience. Sometimes while being in school you are assigned projects and you execute the design to your taste or sometimes to your professor’s taste. You sometimes forget that these designs are supposed to speak to someone. Being a freelance designer/student/intern you realize how important designing for your audience is. When you are working on client work it no longer becomes what you like, but what they like. You definitely want to like it because it is your work (and a potential portfolio piece), but there is now a compromise. You are no longer the sole designer/art director/copywriter/etc. of the assignment.

In the magazine industry it is definitely that way. I interned at Complex Magazine during the Spring and Summer, and will be interning at Esquire Magazine in the fall. From my experience working in editorial you are not the sole designer of your work . You might execute the actual design but it is a collaboration between Creative Directors/Art Directors/Editors/Writers of the publication. For me working in a magazine atmosphere it allows me to be more aware that I am designing for an audience, rather than just myself.”

“Design must serve a purpose whether it involves print, Web, interactive, fashion, packaging or industrial. Each design discipline ultimately serves to reach an audience or consumer. A designer’s “”end game”" is to connect with a person or group visually, aurally, spatially (e.g. architectural designers) and even physically (as in the case of furniture designers). In short, the obvious answer to this question is that the audience is extremely important in any design equation.

However, if we agree to follow this line of reasoning that an equation or formula is involved, then we must also acknowledge another very important variable in this equation — the client. In most cases, designers are hired or contracted by one entity to reach another. We might all think that this is indubitable but you’d be surprised by how many designers impose their own agenda on a design rather than intelligently articulate their client’s message and consequently achieve a defined set of objectives.

Designers are specialized facilitators of communication and this requires more than having advanced knowledge of graphic production techniques and an eye for color. Designers must possess critical thinking that allows them to analyze a client’s goals and objectives, define a framework for translating those objectives into their design creatively, intelligently and clearly. They must be ready to offer critical and constructive feedback and be able to execute.

Both the client and the designer must have a thorough understanding of their intended audience and agree on the approach for reaching them. Understanding the audience is not a gut feeling and if there isn’t any marketing research involved, both designer and client are in for an unpleasant surprise.

Now to the question of whether to design differently based on an audience, my answer is “”Of course!”" As is the practice in writing, designers must be cognizant of their visual tone, weight and voice. Would you use heavy gothic type with black and red if you were trying to sell quilts to a woman aged 65? Independent designers have more freedom than in-house or agency designers to explore and establish their unique style the same as professional illustrators do, but far and few between are the rock star designers who are hired for their style. If you’re one of these, then you’re pretty damn lucky to be able to do what you do. For the rest of us, we must succumb to the fluid nature of changing tastes, attitudes and economies of society and to the constant evolution of messages we must interpret and relay.”