[thelist] Mini audience was: New Site -

Judah McAuley judah at wiredotter.com
Wed Dec 19 14:07:27 CST 2001


At 11:02 AM 12/19/2001 -0800, Moe wrote:
<snip>
>People are surmising that the target for this product are the type that 
>would have Flash and I question that assumption. I will bet the makers of 
>that site made that argument but I would bet with odds that they never 
>-measured- it.
>
>When we use big pages and plug-ins and Java and such, we must test and 
>measure even more. I don't think many companies -- and many web designers 
>- do that. They don't consider all the customers -- the ones who can't get 
>wideband, who are using four-year old computers, road warriors with 
>laptops, foreign customers connecting across half a planet.
>
>It is a natural tendency to design for oneself, to imagine that the 
>audience is like oneself, but it is a bad habit.
</snip>

I understand the importance of measurements, I like quantitative data very 
much, but I feel there is a growing tendency to not want to do anything 
until everything has been tested and measured.  It's the marketing 
way.  And I feel that a product which tries to satisfy everyone will 
satisfy no one.  You end up with designing for the lowest common 
denominator and that frequently produces a bland design.  It doesn't have 
to produce a bland design, of course, and neither should design always try 
for the innovative bleeding edge.  But I do feel that pushing the 
boundaries of your audience and using some judicious judgement calls is 
certainly warranted.

In the case of the Mini, measurement will be difficult anyway.  The best 
predictor of future customers are current customers.  Current customers 
make great focus groups and interview items.  MiniUSA, however, doesn't 
have any current customers.  There are other groups that they could 
question who are likely to be in a target demographic, but its a bit of a 
guess at best.  So they went with a sort of psychographic:  people who 
really want to be excited about a new and different car and want to be 
wowed by it.  Folks like me.

They may be excluding some of their potential audience with all of the 
Flash bells and whistles.  But the people who want just basic specs on the 
car can go to innumerable car-oriented sites and get the info they 
want.  People who go to the main website want the experience, not just the 
facts.  If they can't use the site at home, they'll go to work or to a 
friends house or to the library.

I think its more important (in this case) to provide the best experience to 
the target audience rather than a lesser experience to a wider 
audience.  Its a niche market that I think isn't as amenable to the 
traditional marketing slicing, dicing, and measuring.

my way more than two cents,

Judah





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