[Sigia-l] Re: audience analysis and demographics (long!)

[Rowland, Claire]

**dishclaimer**
this is long, sorry.  it's also veering off peter's original thread into negative examples.  but i know this is the kind of list that encourages discussion, and as he did start by quoting an article of mine (thanks :), i'd like to add a bit of context and perhaps stir up more debate... (excuses, excuses).

> If people see an ad in a magazine, we know they're reading a
> magazine. If they see an ad on TV, we know what show they're
> watching. 
....
> Is market research useful? It depends - on what was researched, how
> it was researched, and why it was carried out.

<rant>

this was my big concern two years ago when i wrote the article  - i was dealing with clients who thought that the kind of demographic data they used for tv or magazine advertising was equally applicable to online media.

this was a big issue back then; certainly in europe, where it seemed that a higher percentage of web workers came from traditional advertising backgrounds, and if clients had any idea who their users were it was usually stated in terms of stereotypical age, gender, and/or socio-economic groups.  the agency i worked for certainly offered upfront user research, but clients didn't always want to devote time or money to it.

as a result, i sometimes saw IAs and project teams forced to work to user profiles generated from these stereotypical classifications, often 'extrapolating' information that was useful to design (such as motivations, level of web experience, need for particular types of content or feature) from that which was not necessarily (gender, age*).  

of course, the danger here was that one could end up with stereotypical profiles and designs driven by information which no-one was sure was accurate.  and sometimes the clients even *wanted* the IAs to reflect those segmentations in the sites....  anyone for a housewives' WAP portal?  i still shudder at the memory of some of it :)

none of us IAs were comfortable with this situation, but you have to have a picture of the users to work from, and if you absolutely *can't* get the data from anywhere else, well, you use your imagination.  yes, it sucks, but i get the impression a lot of people were (and some still are) in the same boat.  

of course, we did what we could to convince them that a user's interaction with a website is far more complicated and difficult to predict than, say, their interaction with a TV ad.  but if you can't get extra time/budget to do the work that tells you what you really need to know, you're still stuck.

i like to think that things have changed a little.  i don't know for sure, as i've been immersed in in-house internal work for the last year, and am very lucky to have a *lot* of access to my users.  (sometimes *too* much ;).  i'd really like to know what others' experiences are.

in conclusion, i'd just say that i don't believe any form of research, as long as it's done well, is good or bad per se.  but i do believe that certain types of research can be more appropriate to a project than others.  we have to be very scrupulous in asking ourselves whether certain types of information which may be very easy to latch on to really ought to make any difference to the 'things' we design.  i'm just cautious with so-called demographics, as i've seen them misused.

</rant>

have a good weekend,
claire


*i'm talking about 18-25, 25-35 and 35-45 type age brackets, not seniors, children or others who may have needs we don't always consider as a result of their age.



Claire Rowland
HCI Specialist/Information Architect
Credit Suisse First Boston
One Cabot Square
London
E14 4QJ

Tel:  +44 (0)20 7888 4908
Fax: +44 (0)20 7890 2372

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