Designing for Advanced Users
Designing for Advanced Users
In this article:
Conclusion: Scale to Your Audience
The U.S. Department of Commerce estimates that the number of web users will grow from 100 million today to more than 1 billion by the year 2005 (www.attachusa.com). For designers, this represents a 10 fold increase in potential audience in the next 4 to 5 years. In addition, children born in the last 10 to 15 years represent the first generation to grow up with computers, creating highly experienced, life-long users that will likely have as high if not a higher technological skill level as today's advanced users. If infrastructure continues to be upgraded and higher bandwidth projections come to fruition, designers may soon see a new freedom in the design elements and technologies that can be efficiently and reliably utilized by large numbers of users.
Designing for today's advanced users should first employ a coordinated visual and textual tone and style to attract and identify the audience for your web site, then employ multimedia elements along side your textual information when appropriate. The MSNBC and Seattle Independent Media Center sites mentioned above both use this approach to in effect scale to the capabilities of their audience. Articles often have video and/or audio available for download as well as supplemental photographs and graphics. In this way, you can include more complex features in your design directed at engaging the more advanced users who expect more interaction with a web site.