Audience

Visual research by Ian Noble

Schools of thought: (encoding and decoding messages)

• process school. Process of communication. Channels and media through which messages are transmitted, and receiver encodes and decodes. If it creates a different effect that isn’t intended by the transmitter, this leads to misreading. Reveals a breakdown in transmission; a flawed system.
• semiotic school. Construction of signs that produces meaning. Communication is agent in the construction and exchange of meaning that doesn’t consider misunderstandings to be evidence of failure of communication.
• Many design approached combine both because brief would have stated intention, while understanding of importance of audience can aid outcomes.

(OVERSIMPLIFIED? Portrays audience as passive.) Encoding (communicator) and decoding (audience). Codes are the traditions and expectations that influence how meanings of signs are produced and how certain representations are formed.

Relationship and process of negotiation between client and designer is important in the development of the definition of the brief.

Modernity is also oversimplifies. 

context helps communication - audience.

Branding - making connection between target consumer and branding strong.

Information Design

• the more you know about the audience, the better informed choices for design to meet audiences needs.
• Should ask lots of questions when opposing to clients.
• Defining audience: could be age, race. gender, income, occupation etc.
• Important to know if audience is global or local as things can have different meanings from different places.
• Ethnography: observing a user interacting with environment can give designer more understanding of the audiences needs.
• Semiotics: theory of signs, ‘sign systems’, how meaning is constructed within cultures, how ideas are connected with words, images and objects. e.g. colour can be used to convey a meaning or mood to audience.

One laptop per child project

• providing durable, low power $100 laptops to children all over world, so that developing countries can provide children technological skill sets.
• Uses an icon based ’zoom’ system to communicate. Easy for children to use, allows many of the same functions.

Identifying audience - using a mood board like grid where you have to identify specific criteria to apply the image. e.g. if one were an animal, what animal would it be?

From this you can build a persona with enough detail to give an insight into the user, to design a more user-friendly solution.

International audience - simplicity and clarity e.g. Munich olympics, Otl Richer.

Inclusive design: design of mainstream products and/or services that are accessible to and useable by as many people as possible. It is user centred. Important to consider visual impairment, which makes standard size print hard to read. Consider colour blindness. Tonal difference. Group relevant info together. Computer screens create a false sense of scale. Choose clear typefaces. Avoid using light type of light background. Maximum contrast. Should still be legible hen converted to greyscale.

lecture

• visual analysis: how images may be interpreted by specific people. Visual ‘grammar’ of image, how it relates to its interpretation, interaction of different visual elements e.g. selection of typeface, how it’s laid out, illustrations chosen etc. Comes from semiotics. Textual analysis uses the word ’text’ in media as a way of analysing. What do these ‘texts’ mean to the audience? can use visual analysis when reflecting on own work.
• Considering gender: thorough research should be carried out first as gender stereotypes should not inform.
• semiotics, meanings are socially constructed, arbitrary and always subject to change.
• audience segmentation: behavioural, demographic, geographical, attitudinal. others: age, sex/gender, race/ethnicity, class, occupation, geography.

Exert from essay:

• educated guess of possible interpretations of what is being looked at. Context.
• study looking at differing interpretations of different kinds of texts. Tribal group and everyday western viewers. How the sensibilities and community aspects compare and the importance of that. How they influence the way they interpret. western can be boring and meaningless, to tribes absence of rockies grandmother isn’t seen, not there, not nonexistence, like western sees this.
• generally interpret in western way, imposes western context on things.
• genres of communication in context.
• avoiding misrepresenting, assumptions, what impact it has.