A Tool for Audience Engagement

This paper describes the processes followed in the creation of a brainstorming tool for media creators to innovate and map out their audience strategies, exploring potential degrees of users’ involvement at different stages of the creation process.

We start from the premise that the active involvement of media audiences is a powerful tool for enhancing their experience, as argued by Harrison and Barthel (2009). Therefore it is plausible to think that it also has the potential to enhance their engagement with content, brand and creators. We argue here for the systematic consideration of these potential involvement techniques by media creators to enhance both the creation process and the users’ media experience.

The design-led research carried out by Moving Targets within the Scottish creative industries led to the co-development, with our industry partners, of a brainstorming and strategy-planning tool for Audience Engagement (AET). This tool is aimed at both helping content producers to be strategic at a long term level as well as to encourage and aid their transition towards more user-centred approaches.

Using this project as a case study we argue for the suitability of design techniques to bridge the gap between theoretical research outcomes and their practical applications. We will discuss the role of design thinking in academic research as well as the potential of visual tools to facilitate the transformational role of both academic research and design.