You May Know Who's Reading This...
But Do You Know HOW? 
Kathy E. Gill 
Consultant dotParagon.com

What do we know about the average Internet user? Looking at the
grand-daddy of surveys (the Georgia Tech Graphics, Visualization
and Usability Center User Surveys) here are some relevant tidbits for
marketers from survey number seven: 

Average age, 35.2 years 
Gender, 31.3% female 
Primary web access web from home, 60.38% 
Monitor size <= 15", 60% 
Most common use of web browser: 

Gather information, 86.03% 
Searching, 63.01% (critical to success of number
one) 
Education, 52.21% 
Entertainment, 45.48% 
Shopping, 18.65% 

This isn't a statistically valid survey, since respondents are
self-selected. However, it provides a picture of the typical user that
leads to tips for those who wish to sell or market products online. 

First, most people are accessing the web on a home-computer.
Think small, in the sense of available RAM. Yes, there are a handful
of home computists who absolutely must have the latest Pentium
processor and 64 (or 128) MB of RAM! But these folks are not the
average computing consumer for the at-home market. 

Heck, they might still be using a 486 machine (or pre-PowerPC) and
Windows 3.x! I have friends in this category who use their computers
for home business and web work. They don't need the added
features, bells and whistles (and hardware requirements) of
Windows95 or 32-bit software. And they don't (usually) have a lot of
RAM to spare either. 

The average computer buyer, based on my personal experience on
the sales floor -- not on any real- (or other-) world surve -- is this. They
are price conscious; they're nervous about making this major
investment in a technology that they don't really understand; and they
just want to take the "off-the-shelf" model home, plug it in, and get to
work. So they are unlikely to have tons of extra RAM available. 

What else is RAM dependent? The browser! As Microsoft and
Netscape take the browser along the same development route as the
office suite, bloat means greater-and-greater RAM requirements.
Doesn't leave a lot for Shockwave, now does it? 

Second, most people are online to find information, and although
entertainment is certainly making inroads, it was still mentioned less
than half the time. Ipso facto, information-rich web sites will be
attractive to the average web consumer. 

How do people access the web from home? Not with a T-1! Modem
connections prevail, cable, satellite and ISDN notwithstanding.
Perhaps this is why 66.31% of the GVU respondents said it takes too
long to download pages off the web. 

This tip is then a given: Avoid making it essential to download large
files. Make their information auxiliary to your primary communication.
Want an example of what I mean by "auxiliary"? 

Let's say you have a great audio clip of someone important saying
something memorable. Give the visitor two links to this information:
one to the RealAudio file and one to an HTML transcript. Guess
which file loads faster? 

And guess what -- in the process you've just made your site
universally accessible to the blind and any other consumer using
non-graphical software to browse the web! You've just increased the
size of your potential market and positioned your company as one
that recognizes diversity. As a bonus, that info is now available to
Web search engines as well. 

Finally, there are a lot of women online. Yes, women remain a
minority, but they are responsible for most major (analog) household
purchase decisions. ). 

Popular media and books have drilled into our consciousness the
fact that men and women communicate differently. As yet, I've seen
no research to show if this carries over to they way they interpret web
sites. 

But a review of web site tone, art and language, with gender
differences in mind, couldn't hurt. 

Small is beautiful on the web. It means graphics optimized for
download speed, and information packaged for fast download. And
as the web evolves from its "wild-west" roots, increasing awareness
of the female site visitor can only enhance a marketer's prayer for
visits, referrals and sales. 
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