Comments on: Elements of Web Design: Audience

By: Jeremy Keith

Jeremy Keith — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 19:52:45 +0000

You wrote:

“Jason Santa Maria can picture the audience of ALA and create a site that is very wide even though out of nowhere you will find many designers speaking out about their 200px wide screens.”

I’d like to direct your attention to the WikiPedia entry for “straw man”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawman#Rhetorical_use

“The straw-man rhetorical technique is the practice of refuting weaker arguments than one’s opponents actually offer. To “set up a straw man” or “set up a straw-man argument” is to create a position that is easy to refute, then attribute that position to your opponent.”

Less straw please, Scrivs.

By: Keith

Keith — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 01:44:55 +0000

You know, I still use and regularly update that persona. As well, I try and take direction from my comments or e-mail feedback all the time. I don’t make all my decisions because of my audience, but I do try and understand them and let them influence me.

By: Bill Eisenhauer

Bill Eisenhauer — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 17:55:51 +0000

I am not a web designer, but rather a mixture of several things. However, I do have a weblog which represents my “brand”.

I have plans to re-do my design shortly as what’s there is just a blatant theft of Zeldman’s color scheme. However, in considering doing so, I am realizing fully that most people will rarely go there because they’ll read an RSS feed. So a minimalist design seems appropriate in my opinion.

That said, mine will be just a shade above minimalist as I never doing anything too close to par.

Bill

By: William Stewart

William Stewart — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 17:27:44 +0000

Thanks for the reminder to stay in touch with the reason why we have a blog in the first place. It is very hard to get a feel for the audience. On my site I have many “lurkers” who I write and design for, but do not vocalize their opinions.