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Module B > Audience needs  
 

What are audience needs?

“Putting the end user first” is a critical part of Outcomes Based Planning and Evaluation.  Think of the end user as the target audience whose needs you meet.

Audience needs may be wants, deficits, conditions, or other gaps between skills/knowledge audiences already have and those they want.

Sometimes audiences request programs. Sometimes program planners plan programs to fill gaps between the current situation and what they want for audiences.

Try thinking what the audiences listed below might need.

"Commuter students" : Commuter students want textbooks as audiobooks.
"Student Bird Watching Group" : Student Bird Watchers must identify 5 local birds to earn a badge.
"Low income Rural Residents" : People in rural low-income areas lack access to educational materials available on computers.

Library example: conditions, wants and deficits

Try thinking of conditions, wants and deficits that library program planners want to address.

Wants: Librarians notice that older library patrons need self-paced training on computer use.

Deficits: Children know little about what immigrants have added to their city.

Conditions: Many blind patrons are cut off from news and email because they don’t know how to use adaptive technology.

Understanding audience needs

Most programs don’t confirm audience needs with formal research.

They rely on program developers’ beliefs or assumptions about the audience’s needs. Assumptions can be drawn from:

Your experiences - Conversations with parents or teachers
A program partner’s experience - School Department bulletins
Informal research or inference from formal research done in other situations: An article you see in a professional journal or find on a reputable website

Then add in what you know about the situation: how does the need relate to your institutional mission? What resources are available? What partners can help?

Finally, combine what you know about the situation and audience needs into a list of audience considerations – what you must take into account as you plan your solution to those needs.

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