Planning and Setting Up Your Site > About site planning and design > Choosing a target audience

Choosing a target audience

After you have decided what you want to accomplish with your Web site, you need to decide who you want to visit your site. This may seem to be a silly question, since most people want everyone to visit their Web site. However, it is difficult to create a Web site that every single person in the world will be able to use. People use different browsers, connect at different speeds, and may or may not have media plug-ins. All these factors can affect the use of your site. That is why you need to determine a target audience.

Think about the people who will be attracted to your Web site, or who you hope to attract. What kinds of computers do you think they will be using, what platform might be the dominant one (Macintosh, Windows, Linux, and so on)? What is the average connection speed (33.6 modem or DSL)? What kinds of browsers and monitor sizes will they be using? Are you creating an intranet site where everyone will be using the same computer OS and browser? All of these factors can greatly affect the way your Web page appears to visitors.

Once you choose the audience and have determined what types of computers, connection speeds, and browsers they will be using, you can target your design.

For example, say your target audience is predominantly Windows users with 17-inch monitors and using Internet Explorer 3.0 or above. As you design your Web page, you should test that your site works best in Microsoft Internet Explorer on a Windows computer with a screen size of 800 x 600 pixels. Fewer viewers may use Netscape Navigator on a Macintosh platform, but you should also make sure your site still works on those machines, although it may not display as precisely as it does for your target audience.