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Understand your audience

Last updated on March 4, 2026

Your content will be most effective if you understand who is using it and why.

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Identify your main audience

While government serves everyone, pages or services often support specific groups of people. Identify the main audience before you start writing or revising content. To get started talk with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), including program staff or service owners. This can help you understand:

  • Who the primary audience is
  • What they’re trying to do
  • What information they need to succeed

This helps you figure out the right tone and level of detail to include. Use plain language that can be understood by people with different backgrounds and levels of familiarity. Plain language does not remove complexity or accuracy. It helps all readers, including experts, find, understand and use information more quickly.

No matter who your audience is, design and write with accessibility in mind.

Keep in mind that content may be summarized or reused outside its original page by search engines or artificial intelligence (AI) tools. Writing clearly and avoiding assumptions helps ensure information is understood correctly in any context.

Do design research

Design research helps you understand who uses your content and why. This may include user interviews, usability testing, surveys or reviewing service feedback.

Ask questions such as:

  • What does the audience need to accomplish?
  • Does the content answer their questions, or does it send them elsewhere?
  • How do they search for this information?
  • What words do they use? Are you using jargon they may not understand?

Use what you learn to shape content that reflects the audience's language, priorities and behaviour.

Use web analytics

Using web analytics may tell you more about your audience and how they find and use the content over time, including:

  • Which pages are most frequently visited
  • How people arrive at the content
  • Where they leave or get stuck

Use this data alongside design research to find opportunities to improve clarity, structure or navigation.