What is Audience? Reflection

This is my reflection on “What is Audience?”

I am in a group with two other people, and the links to their sites are here and here. Our project will be a website focused on informing our audience, which will be A&M students, about voting.

This week we spent time brainstorming what our potential website could look like and what information it would contain, but besides our identified audience, we do not have anything set in stone yet. We do not want our website to be biased and will likely include debate videos, so the audience can make their own informed choice. Additionally, we would like to include A&M themes to make the site more personal. The site is not going to be anything flashy, but rather more professional. A&M students are not only from Brazos County, so it will be vital to include information on whether or not they would have to be registered in Brazos, and the laws around voting in Texas. Voting laws in Texas that may be different from the state they are from include early voting, absentee voting, and online registration. The implied audience can be any other person interested in voting in Brazos County, Blinn students, or someone interested in knowing how college students go about voting.

There are many websites out there about the voting process and what you can do to register, where to vote, and how to vote, however there is not much specifically geared to A&M students. Which is why we are inspired to do so. This Vote website here provides a general idea of what we would like to do information wise, but more specific to an audience instead of generally towards everyone. There is a lot of information that is unnecessary for A&M students, so that is why we would filter the information we would want and is relevant on our website. Some information that would be more relevant to A&M students is where early voting polling stations The Vote website, however, is a good format that we can draw inspiration from. Since the website is geared towards US citizens, the site includes the color theme of red, white, and blue, along with different shades of those colors. The link to the home page is also a logo of the US flag. All these details keep with the theme that voting is a strongly American act. As such, as inspiration, our site can include Aggie core values into the site along with the Aggie color theme. Doing so may possibly encourage voting among the A&M population, but at the very least can add personality to the site. As for the organization of the content, the Vote website places a countdown for the “Time Left Until Election Day” at the top. Underneath the countdown is “Locate your polling place” as well as “Find early voting locations.” There are more links that continue as you scroll down the page, and the pattern is generally what the most important information is for most Americans that are eligible and registered to vote then ending with information for those that are too young to vote. Inspiration we can draw from this content organization is by placing somewhere noticeably on the home page the most crucial information for the typical A&M student.