Plan · Aesthetary Original

Name the audiences and what each needs to know

You'll be able to list every kind of visitor, their questions in the order they ask them, and their one next step.

2 min video · captions on

In this skill

Keep their questions in the order they ask.

brief.md · Audiences
1Attendee (leads): What is it? Who's speaking? When, where? How do I buy? → Get tickets
2Partner or sponsor: Who attends? Who partnered? → Become a partner
3Speaker: Who has spoken? How do speakers take part? → Contact [CONFIRM: open application?]
4Media: The facts? Who to contact? → Media inquiry
5Past attendee or searcher: Who spoke that year? Can I watch that talk? → The archive

Write who comes, what they ask in order, and their one next step.

Transcript

This is a speculative redesign I made of the AllWeb conference site. AllWeb didn't commission it, and its ticket button is a demo. A bakery mostly serves regulars. A conference has at least five kinds of visitor, and each one arrives with different questions. So before you decide what the site asks anyone to do, write down who comes and what they need to know.

Start from your research notes, not a blank page. My strategy draft names five audiences: people who might buy a ticket, partners and sponsors, speakers, the media, and people searching past years for a talk. A list like that is still a draft. Check each audience against what research found. If nothing shows them arriving, they don't get a row yet.

Now take one audience at a time and write its questions in its own words. The attendee's list runs twelve lines. It opens with what is this, and is it for me. Price comes near the end, and how do I buy a ticket is last. That order is information. Nobody asks how to buy before they know what the thing is. Keep the order here, because the page structure will follow it later. Under each list, write the one step that audience should take. Attendees get tickets. Partners become a partner. The media send an inquiry.

Then put it in the brief, short enough to read in one look: who they are, their first questions, and their next step. One block per audience. Watch for a step that promises something the business hasn't offered. The draft says it outright: don't promise an open speaker application unless one exists. So the speaker's next step is contact, and the question goes to AllWeb as a confirm marker.

Last, choose who leads the homepage. Partners matter, and they pay. But this site's one job is selling tickets for the sixth of November, so attendees lead, and the brief says why in a line. Here's that decision on the built page. The first screen answers the attendee first: what it is, when, where, and the ticket button. Partners get their own section further down, with their own button.

Write down who comes, what each one asks, in the order they ask it, and the one step you want them to take next.