Most designers think they know their audience, but do they really?
When building a Digital Humanities (DH) project—whether an online archive, a visualization of migration patterns, or a tool to explore ancient texts—the most important question is: Who is this for?
It sounds simple. But in practice, many DH projects jump straight to the tools and the data, skipping a clear understanding of who will actually use the final product. The result? Beautifully coded websites that confuse students, leave researchers guessing, and overwhelm curious members of the public.
This article illustrates why audience matters, how to identify the audience, and a few simple tips to stay audience-focused while building.
Knowing Your Audience Is Crucial in DH
Building an effective DH project is not easy, but understanding User Experience (UX), can make it possible. UX is about making things work well for the people using them. Without knowing who those people are, or what they care about—it is inevitable to design in the dark.
Here are a few real types of DH audiences:
- Students need an interface that simplifies complex ideas or guides them step-by-step.
- Researchers want depth: powerful filters, access to raw data, reliable citations.
- Public audiences might come for a story, a sense of wonder, or a single compelling image.
Each group has different goals, expectations, and digital habits. If a design tries to serve all three without clarity, it will fail all of them.
Defining the Audience
Here are a few simple questions to narrow down the audience:
- Who is most likely to use this site?
- What are they trying to do?
- What do they already know, and what do they need to know?
- What similar tools are they familiar with?
- How do they learn best?
If these questions are hard to answer, talk to real people. Even a couple of quick questions or informal conversations can give valuable insights.
A Real Example: The Slave Voyages Database
The Slave Voyages project is a powerful DH resource that maps transatlantic slave trade data. It serves multiple audiences:
- Students exploring the slave trade in class.
- Researchers needing specific voyage records.
- The general public seeking stories and visualizations.
The tools available on the website accurately address the needs of the different audiences, showing an identification of those audiences. These tools include an accessible timeline for students, a searchable database for researchers, and curated videos and visuals for the public. Each audience is given specific tools to help them accomplish their goals.
This is audience-focused design, which provides the best value to those who need it.
Tools to Keep Audience-Centered
Once the audience (or multiple audiences) are identified, a few lightweight tools can help organize and apply audience-first thinking.
Personas
A persona is a fictional profile representing a type of user. This should be a specific person—with a name, age, occupation, etc.—based on information gathered about the audience. The persona could be as simple as a few sentences, or a board with pictures to support. As an example if one of the audience groups is college students studying history, this would work as a brief persona description:
“Olivia is a first-year history student. She’s assigned to explore an archive, but has never used one before. She feels intimidated by academic language and often uses Google before library tools.”
Now, when designing the homepage or search bar, ask the question: What would be most helpful to Olivia?
Journey Maps
A journey map is the story of someone’s experience with a product displayed on a timeline. It includes what they do, think, and feel at each step. This shows the audience’s needs, obstacles, and environment. Discovering these will help provide the audience with what’s most important to them.
For example:
- Step 1: Olivia lands on the site → “What do I do here?” (Confused)
- Step 2: Finds the “Explore” button → “Okay, I’ll try that.” (Hopeful)
- Step 3: Gets many results, but doesn’t understand them → “I don’t know what any of this means.” (Frustrated)
With the map, areas to improve the design are illuminated. Simplifying the results display, adding a simple guide, or rewording labels for clarity.
Final Tips for Staying Audience-Focused
- Write for them
Avoid academic terms if the audience will be unfamiliar with them. Alternatively, if the audience is university professors with a specific research emphasis, use language that would be familiar to them. - Watch someone use your site
Ask a student or friend to try it out. Watch where they hesitate, what they skip, and what they say out loud. - Prioritize needs, not features
Every time a feature is added, ask: Does this solve a problem my audience actually has? - Refine over time
It doesn’t have to be perfect before launching. Pay attention to feedback and make adjustments.
In Summary
If there’s only one takeaway from this article, let it be this:
Designing without a clear audience is like writing a letter without knowing who’s going to read it.
By identifying who the design is for and what they value, DH projects can be made more thoughtful, intuitive, and impactful. A degree in psychology or a big research budget isn’t needed. Just a willingness to listen, observe, and design with people in mind.