An audience analysis takes a look at the makeup of the learners that need to be trained. We look at key data points such as size, location, education, language, organizational environment they are in; physical attributes (age), skills and knowledge, attitude and culture and customer requirements. This helps ensure our designers design and developers develop (encode) training materials that will be appropriate (decoded) to our users.
A sampling of the questions we ask:
- What is the estimated size of the learner segment (number of people, in how many departments, across how many firms, across how many industries)?
- Where is each learner segment geographically distributed?
- What types of organizations (universities, Wall Street, government, Fortune 500, Silicon Valley) make up this segment?
- What are the job functions or duties of typical learners in this segment?
- What is the range of skills of typical learners in this segment?
- Is this learner segment internal to your company and its subsidiaries?
- What is the age range of learners in this segment?
- What is the typical age of a learners in this segment?
- How much job experience should learners have in order to use the task being trained?
- How frequently do or will learners perform the task/use the product (for example, daily, weekly, monthly)?
- How proficient are learners in using computers in general? Mobile devices?
- How proficient are learners in using Internet applications and the Web?
- How much industry knowledge do learners typically have?
- How much experience do learners typically have interacting with our company?
- What are learners’ current level of knowledge of the task or product?
- What related products are target learners familiar with?
- Have learners been previously trained in the product?
- What are learner’s desired level of knowledge of the product?
- What is the average educational level of learners?
- What languages do learners speak and write?
- What cultural or internationalization factors may influence design (for instance, time differences; sight or mobility limitations; culturally unacceptable symbols, colors, or words)?
- What requirements (regulatory, legal, business, organizational, and political) must be considered in the development of learning solutions?
- What are learners’ motivation or attitude toward the product or task?
- What do learners expect to see in training?
- What have learners expressed a desire to see in training?
- What have learners expressed a desire to not see in training?