Building Dance Websites for Different Constituencies
One of the major challenges of creating a successful website is to ensure that you address the needs of each of your constituencies.
For dance companies, your main audiences are likely to consist of:
- Ticket buyers and audiences for your performances
- Presenters (and others who may book you)
- Press (dance critics, bloggers and others)
- Students for classes and educational programs
- Grantmakers/funders/individual donors
To accommodate the needs of each of your audience segments, there are three elements of your website that matter most:
1) Navigation: a clear navigation system to help each constituency quickly find the information that is important and relevant to them.
2) Content: Written and multimedia materials that address the questions that each group will likely have about what you do.
3) Content format: Relevant content provided in a format that best matches each group's content consumption preferences. For example, presenters may want information about your performances and residencies available in an easy to print format, which can be shared with their colleagues offline.
Testing Your Website's Constituency Readiness
To test how well your website does in addressing the needs of each of your key audience segments, simply play the role of a member from each group.
First, visit your website as a possible ticket buyer:
- Can you quickly and easily find a list of upcoming performances?
- Is the information about a specific performance helpful and complete?
- Is the performance description helpful to people who are not familiar with your dance company?
- Do the pictures and video excerpts motivate you to attend?
- Are there clear instructions on how to purchase tickets (online or offline)?
- Does the online ticketing system work properly?
- Can I import the performance date and time directly into my favorite calendar software or application?
- Is there a map and directions for the venue?
Then, do the same type of website walk-through for each of your other constituencies. You'll likely figure out in no time at all whether your website effectively serves the needs of each group.
I would like to find examples of dance websites that do an excellent job of speaking to each of their different audience segments. If you know of good examples, please let me know.
Posted by
Doug Fox on March 16, 2009 5:00 AM
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4 Comments
Doug - thanks for this clear and easy to read post. I know navigation is important, but I would actually move content up to the top. Content is king, goes the mantra. If you've got good content, people will find it, share it, and look for it. Navigation is the responsibility of a good designer + developer.
re: constituents -
It's important, like you said, to keep in mind that each constituent, user, or person will have different needs.
As you said,a ticket buyer has a different need than a donor, patron, or casual fan. However, this may all be the same person, depending on the time of year.
If a fan wants to get their friend to come to a show (or a newly designed site), there needs to be something for that fan to share, pass on, and link to.
Before our recent financial meltdown, we defined ourselves by what we had. Now, we define ourselves by what we share.
Make it easy for people to share, and you've got yourself a golden ticket. It just may take a long, long time.
Doug, I'd also suggest that dance companies recruit a few volunteers to role-play constituency members while testing the site -- volunteers who aren't familiar with the site. Staff members might find that being close to the project keeps them from looking at it with fresh eyes.
Jaki,
Thanks for your comment and sharing your thoughts about social media.
I wasn't really listing in order of importance the three elements above that I said were critical to communicating effectively with each of your different constituencies. I was listing them in the order of how website visitors are likely to navigate through a website and access different types of content and media.
I do think that site navigation, layout and design are equally important considerations in conjunction with content.
If content is shareable (users can easily click links to share/embed videos, posts and pictures), then other Internet users will eventually make it to a dance company's website as a result of coming across this content--they may first end-up on YouTube, Vimeo and other social media sites and then click through to the dance company's website.
Once these new users reach a dance website as a result of viral media, they are not going to find or be motivated to find the content that is relevant to them if the navigation, design and layout are not clear, accessible and appealing.
So I definitely agree with you on the importance of content. I just believe that there are a number of elements that should work in tandem in order to create an effective dance-focused website.
Thanks, Maryann.
It is definitely helpful, as you say, to have volunteers who are not too close to your website provide their critical perspective on whether a website truly meets the needs of each audience segment.
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