I think that Chapter 3—Readers and Contexts of Use in Technical Communication Today was an appropriate way to begin our class. For the last four years I have worked in sales and I found that many of the concepts related to context are true in writing and sales. Learning and adapting to your audience's physical, economic, political and ethical contexts can improve either your sales or readership. I most recently worked in Ohio selling corn and soybean seed and the fact that I'm from Michigan became an ethical issue for many Ohio State fans which hindered our relationship. The fact that I hated U of M as much as they did helped with some, but not with others.
I also found the guidelines for readers very interesting. The most important ones I will remember are that readers generally do not read every word you write, so write concise, need to know information that is easy to find. Using these simple concepts while writing and editing my own work will make my writing more meaningful and easier to read. Some examples that I found in the reading are:
1) Use bullets and numbering to hightlight important information
2) Break up the page and bring attention to action the reader needs to take
3) Summarize and review information and action
Although I have used primary, secondary, and tertiary, audiences in the past, at the end of the chapter, the authors recomended several projects to complete using the information covered. One of these is to compare two different websites designed to reach two different groups of people, list their primary audiences and discuss how the website is designed to reach that audience. I did this with ESPN (www.espn.go.com) and Victoria's Secret (www.victoriassecret.com). The first thing I noticed is that the websites have two very different purposes. ESPN.com is designed to relay sports related news where Victoria's Secret's website is designed to sell products. Both sites had many clues to narrow down their intended audience. ESPN used a dark red as their background color and used a large amound of text with pictures of athletes. This leads me to guess that their audience is men 18 to 45. Victoria's Secret uses pink as their background and uses large artistic fonts to highlight sales and product lines. I would assume then that they are trying to reach women 16-35.
Although it doesn't take a marketing genius to figure out ESPN and Victoria's Secret's primary audiences, I have thought more about the purpose of website layouts. Hopefully some of you have had other experiences looking for different audiences and I look forward to talking with you about them.
Audiences
I'd generally agree with your synopses of espn.com and victoriassecret.com (except for maybe the age groups, because I know plenty of men older than 45 that still like sports and ESPN), but I also think that it is the combination of background color, the amount of text, font, and pictures that really tie a layout together. If ESPN didn't primarily have pictures of male athletes, could you still conclude that they were targeting men based on background color and amount of text alone? Red, in my opinion, isn't as gender-defined as the pink that Victoria's Secret uses. The amount of text would also be a vague indicator, because news sites use plenty of it, and I'm sure women read the news. As another example, PacSun seems to use very similar layouts for guys and girls, yet they are targeting two different audiences (with respect to gender, at least). Take away the pictures of the guy and the girl, and they're practically indistinguishable at first glance. So yes, I'd agree that a website's layout is very important for targeting specific audiences.
Website targets
I also agree with most of what you said. I think the amount of text and the color red are weak arguments in favor of ESPN.com being targeted toward men. However, I believe that Victoria's Secret is targeted toward women even though they use pictures of women in lingerie when that image is often used in advertising targeted toward males as well. And the reason I assumed ESPN's primary audience is less than 45, is because even today where most people can use e-mail, very few web designers are targeting people over 45. I also looked at www.PacSun.com and you are absolutely right that the website hardly changes for guys and girls. But in my opinion, if they would re-design their "guys" page, they could do a much more effective job reaching their target audience.
Mike Sheridan
Web Development
I've done professional web development in the past (see http://www.fairnetbb.com/) and definitely agree that design and layout are very important and can definitely be catered to a specific audience. However, when designing for the web you have to consider several types of users you might not expect. The blind have special devices that can read websites out-loud, so using the correct syntax (html tags) around headings is very important. There are also tools freely available on the web that can show you what your website would look like to users who have certain types of colorblindness. The better you understand your audience as a whole, the better your design can be, and the easier your readers can extract the information your trying to give them.
Primary audiences
I appreciate your response Z, because i think it opens the door to talk about different types of audiences relating to websites. I believe that even though it is important to make websites available to those with all kinds of disabilities, this addresses the needs of the tertiary audience and gatekeepers. It is the lawyers, media and your competition that can hurt your company if the needs of those people aren't met. Therefore, people within the company, the gatekeepers must make sure that all bases are covered. This is why it is so important to think about everyone in your audience, not just your primary target.
Mike Sheridan
Response
I agree with the selection of primary audiences for the two mentioned websites, but what about secondary and tertiary audiences? Are they important to a retail company like Victoria’s Secret or a sportscaster like ESPN? I definitely think ESPN has focused on their primary audience with the layout, advertisements, and information. People going to ESPN know what they are looking for and it probably doesn’t see much traffic from people not interested in sports. Victoria’s Secret, on the other hand, is a retail store which will see traffic from all different audiences. Some people shopping for themselves(primary), others buying gifts(secondary), etc.