To some extent, you already know ways in which the nature of your audience can affect your text. In a class setting, other students and instructors will already be familiar with the assignment and the subject matter about which you are writing. You adjust vocabulary and tone to suit that audience. Thinking about your audience’s potential needs, biases, knowledge, attitudes, and preferences helps you present your text suitably.

To reach your audience effectively, first consider the formats open to you. In some cases, the context in which you are writing and the audience to whom you are writing will determine the format(s) you can use.

Second, consider the strengths and weaknesses of different formats for your particular audience. Are they already familiar with the ideas you are conveying? Do they already know something about the subject matter? What do they still need to know about it?

How will your audience interact with the text? Will they glance at your poster as they pass, or will they need to sit down and study your business plan? How much information can you expect them to take in?  How open to your message are they: do you need to persuade them of something? To what extent do you need to take age, education level, language, and cultural or social background into account? The image below is an example of why these concerns are relevant.

Figure 3. “Kevin Bacon” by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Consider what your audience knows. To some audiences, Kevin Bacon is a meme. To others, he’s an actor. Some people don’t know who he is.

Also consider readers’ familiarity with the format itself. Will your reader know what to do when he sees a blue hyperlink on a web page? In what ways will differences in physical ability affect how your audience interacts with the text? Are illustrations needed? Is a short video better than a text-only writeup? Which formats allow you to best provide the information your readers need?

Most Western readers expect text to flow from left to right. But readers of Arabic, Urdu, Farsi, and Hebrew, for example, are accustomed to reading text from right to left. Twitter had to consider this when they adapted their product for an Arabic-speaking audience. Depending on the context, design must include consideration of different audiences with different preferences, background knowledge, cultural concerns, and language backgrounds.

You have many formats to choose from: letters, papers and other printed pages, flyers (double and single-sided), posters, booklets, a wide variety of multi-fold brochures or pamphlets, PowerPoint presentations, blogs, apps, tweets, web pages, vlogs, videos, audio files, and so on. Each of these formats has strengths and weaknesses as a delivery mode for information.

Consider which audiences would be receptive to receiving this information in this format:

Figure 4: Some formats and some messages are not suitable for every audience. (Public Domain image)

Obviously, the graphic in Figure 4 is intended for a specific audience whose education enables them to understand the content. Familiarity with computer programming and code is needed to understand the information in the Figure 5 graphic, below.

Figure 5: The Windows command line interface. FUN! Public Domain image.

Think about what it meant to go from the Windows command line interface to the Linux graphical interface (Figure 6, below). Designers at PARC, Apple, Atari, and later Microsoft realized that most people need an easier way to interact with software and hardware. Attention to the preferences and experience of its users has consistently won Apple Computer legions of loyal fans.

Figure 6: A graphical user interface for an open-source Linux operating system. Image Credit: KumarPriyansh, BackSlash Linux Elsa, CC BY-SA 4.0