Max hammond- Curtis and Cartwright

www.curtiscartwright.co.uk

Dr Max Hammond

6 September 2011

Audience analysis

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Who am I?

• Dr Max Hammond

• Consultant at Curtis+Cartwright

• Broad experience across higher education and research

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Understanding users

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What do you need to know?How well?How will you find this out?

What’s a user?What is use?How does this relate to “markets”?What do funders think a user is?

Why do you want to do this, and what will you do with your new understanding?

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This talk

• Key ideas in user research

• The SCA guide to audience analysis

• Planning for research

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An approach to researchUnderstanding users

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Approach to research

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Target audience

Plan

Research

Analyse

Apply

The basic principles in the lifecycle: 1. Target audience: describe and

define the target audience2. Plan: plan your research3. Research: collect the data4. Analyse: model your audience5. Apply: exploit the evidence

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Approach to research: Planning

Why are you conducting research?

What do you need to know?

How will you find this out?

What will you do with the

information?

How does this change your

world?

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Why conduct research?

• Develop new services

• Improve existing services

• Improve impact of services (ie increase usage of service)

• Meet reporting requirements

• Manage service portfolio

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SatisfactionFundamental fitPre-requisites

What do you need to know?

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Motivation Awareness Functionality Usage/ experience

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How will you find this out?

• Desk research

• Focus groups

• Interviews

• Surveys

• Analytics

• User observation

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What will you do with the information?

• Be clear at the outset about your intentions:

• Monitor performance/meet targets

• Market segmentation/Develop user personas• Product development• Marketing• Product design

• Develop business case

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Key points about user research

• At least consider what you should do, as well as what you can• Eg surveys of users are easy, but only tell you what current users think

• Research does not have to be perfect to be useful• It’s for your benefit, not for academic publication

• No single method will give you the full picture

• Beware unsupported web analytics/“deep log analysis”• Without financial value of transactions, understanding success is hard

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What’s next?

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http://sca.jiscinvolve.org/wp/audience-publications/

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What’s next?

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http://microsites.oii.ox.ac.uk/tidsr/welcome

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What’s next?

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Marketing research: 658.801

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Towards a framework?

• Get the research questions right

• Distinguish between user analysis and performance measurement

• What is common between collections, what is distinct?• Target markets• Current users• Content types and channels• Funders?

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Contact details

Dr Max HammondCurtis+Cartwright Consulting Ltd+44 (0)1483 685026+44 (0)77 8011 0671max.hammond@curtiscartwright.co.uk