Know your audience and their needs
Use knowledge of your readers to help design your document and try reading it in that light.
Last modified: 4/13/98
Figure out what your audience will be like
When putting together a web document, understand who your audience will be and what their needs and motivations are. Use this information to decide how to organize and present the information.

You need to answer questions such as:
•   How much time will they spend with this document?
•   Will they read all of it?
•   Do they want to be amused?
•   What questions will they be asking of the document?
•   Will they read different parts at different times?
•   Will they use the document as reference material?

Use the audience information to determine which techniques to employ
The answers to these and other questions will help you determine how much you should break the information down into small chunks, how much you can rely on the reader to read every word and in what order.

The answers will help you know how much you should rely on other techniques listed here.

Check the document in light of the readers
Periodically look through your document, pretending that you are the intended reader. Does it "work"?

We have some examples.