February 21, 2003

Making the Invisible Visible

James McNally reviews Hillman Curtis' "Making the Invisible Visible" in the new issue of Digital Web Magazine.

In the book, Curtis lays out a seven-stage process that he uses on projects:


1. Listen
2. Unite
3. Theme
4. Concept
5. Eat the Audience
6. Filter
7. Justify

Given my upcoming talk on "Knowing Your Audience," I'm especially interested in #5, "Eat the Audience." Here's what McNally had to say about it:

“Eating the Audience” is a clever way of restating the concept of understanding who designers work for. There’s no substitute for research, and this information gathering should take place at every stage of the project’s development. Curtis makes a valid point that Web designers do not have the luxury of thinking like fine artists. The art designers create is commercial. It is designed to meet the needs of clients and their audiences, so designers need to constantly crawl out from their own creative spaces to listen to others.

I see a lot of resistance towards the notion of learning about the audience. Many people, I think, don't bother to take a systematic look at their audience. Its nice to hear a design star like Curtis focus on audiences.