Message
Why Message and Audience?
The presentation, like any act, conveys a message even if you don't care about it. That would be to take a risk instead of an opportunity. If you do care about the message, you have to think about the recipient. You don't talk to a 12 year old girl the same as you do to a 61 year old man.
If you work on art without a documented audience, you are still very likely to make a number of assumptions regarding your recipients. Such hidden assumptions are detrimental to cooperation on artwork.
The target audience for artwork doesn't need to be identical to the entire audience for Ubuntu as such. You can't please everyone. One person's exciting is another's over-the-top. One person's elegant is another's boring. However, there can be designs that are admired by very many people, as there can be designs that are abhorred by almost everyone.
Defining a main audience, even if specifically only for the presentation, is likely to raise complaints about excluding people. But the attempt to target everyone implies an audience of just average people. No single person is average, though. Especially geographically.
Audience
Who not to design for?
- Enthusiasts and satisfied current users who will stay with Ubuntu, anyway.
- People who will change the Appearance in any case and repeatedly, for they have a desire to customize.
- Mark Shuttleworth. It is his project and his approval is required if we want to get things shipped as default. So he could be seen as client, but he's just too extraordinary for any audience. Even to see him as client is problematic, because there's almost no communication regarding the presentation. If there were, his input could still be in conflict with our findings and assumptions. Designing without a client should be to our advantage.
Who to design for?
While the age range of current and potential users might reach quite far in both directions, I would expect a strong peak somewhere between 20 and 35.
Some audiences are problematic due to a real or perceived lack of certain software. Gaming is a big issue. Many artists, designers and musicians are, or feel, tied to very specific software.
One could ask: Who is Ubuntu good for? Who will benefit from its key characteristics the most? Here there is a risk to end up in a loop, though. So we prefer to ask:
Who do we want to attract next?
Trendsetters who will lead other to follow. People who are visible in their computer use. Those who have interesting capabilities to add to our community. Those who have the glamour we would like for Ubuntu itself. Young web-savvy professionals.
What are the conclusions we have to draw here?
Audience characteristics
How to define the audience more closely, if deemed sensible:
- Age Group
- Gender (percentages)
- Social status
- Education
- Technical knowledge
- Skills
- Attitudes and cultural bias
- Hobbies
- Goals (as far as related to computer use)
- Common tasks
- Equipment
- Environment (work/home)
- Geographical location
How to handle cultural differences around the world
Avoid to be culture specific as far as possible. Accept a western-centric bias. Leave it to spin-offs to happen where the need and ability collide.
Get experts aboard for each major cultural region, if possible.
The Message
Initially, work as advertisement. Ubuntu is:
- distinct from other offerings
- desirable
Continued, in order of importance:
- reliable, trustworthy
- forgiving
- based on cooperation and sharing
Prejudices we have to fight
- Linux is overly complicated and only for nerds.
- If it's free it has to be inferior. Free of charge should only be an implied part of the message, bound to the sharing and community angle, because things that do not cost money are often not valued and thought to be inferior.
- It's just a bad clone of Windows/OSX.
Beneficial associations
- Letterpress printing (cultural achievement, infrastructure, sharing of knowledge)
- Scientific process
- Teamwork
- International community
Those who might think negative about any of the above are quite likely to not be sympathetic towards Ubuntu, anyway.