Audience Profiles and Scenarios

In a document of two- or three-pages, begin thinking through some of the choices that lie before you in the creation of your personal home site. Though this piece of writing is provisional and speculative, write it in present tense, as if your Web site already exists. Essentially, here, you're creating the site in your verbal imagination so you can realize it digitally later.

Compose this document in five sections, one per identity or realm from the project's assignment, as well as a concluding section for describing conflicts and connections:

1. families (both blood relatives or more provisional, chosen families, e.g., the street),
2. school (K-12, non-major college classes, providing you with literacy and cultural authority),
3. profession or discipline,
4. the entertainment industry (or other cultural institutions, e.g., the church).
5. conflicts and connections (among some or all audiences)

Build a detailed verbal profile of the audience for each realm: their ages, attitudes, needs, tastes, knowledge of the Web, likely attitudes toward you, the fact you have a Web site, etc. Describe what you have at your site (keeping in mind the writing you're doing is invention at this point) that is of use or interest to each audience. Be sure that what you provide is more than just a list of naked links to other sites. What kind of content (words, images, imagetexts) are you providing them? What does each audience need or want that you, given your position as you, can provide them? Are there multiple audiences within each identity above-for instance, "discipline" might include both classmates and prospective employers.

Next, write a "scenario" for each audience below their profile. A scenario describes what each audience sees when they arrive at your main page, how they find the section or page intended for them, what they're thinking or feeling, etc. The scenario is a narrative that can trace that audience's experience at your site right down to their eye movements on the page. What does each audience do with the material they find once they find it? Be sure to describe-in as much detail, and as completely as you can-how they move through and use the content you provide.

Finally, in section five, think through the conflicts of taste, interests, expectations, etc. among your audiences (among these various aspects of you!). How do you manage those conflicts or take advantage of these connections? What verbal and visual material do you use, especially on the main page, to suggest the deeper connections among these audiences/topics that unify your site and your vision of life.