User:Johan G/Essays/Essay:Our target audiences — how are they best served

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Some thoughts about who our target audiences are and how are they best served.

I have sometimes been wondering about if and how we try reach target audiences, but some edits make me wonder more towards if.

Target groups

I would love some more thoughts about this. As I see it there are mainly these often distinct, but often overlapping audiences:

• Wiki editors (the ones I am trying to reach here).
• FlightGear users:
  • Without any knowledge on what is going on underneath the hood
  • That have personalized configuration like preferences.xml and joystick configuration files etc.
  • That have tinkered with their favorite aircraft
• "Data developers":
  • Aircraft, object and instrument modelers
  • FDM and systems developers
  • Nasal coders
  • Texture and livery artists
• Core developers

How do we make sure each group:

1. Find what they are looking for:
   • When they think they should be looking for one thing, but really are looking for something else
   • When they do know what they are looking for, but do not know the proper terms to look for
   • When they actually do know exactly what they look for
2. Quickly know if they are on the right track or not
3. Do not get confused by what they find (or get a mental buffer overflow)
4. Get tempted to learn more
5. Get tempted to contribute