We write for audiences, and the more we know about those audiences, the more compelling our writing gets. So we want to think about who we're writing for, and how we should write for them.

So, how can we know about our users, and how can we apply that knowledge to our writing? I think we can do some preliminary brainstorming here for everyone to draw from as they write for particular audiences. I considered starting a new thread for each type of user (eg, "How to Write for the Gay Community", "Appealing to the Sensibilities of the Rich") - however, that seems a little ambitious at this point.

So, this thread is just for a general discussion, for bouncing around ideas about writing for target markets.

The best companies' writers draw up user profiles to better understand their audience. They even create vignettes, little character summaries of a typical user who might read their copy. "Jenny Leifenberger is a twenty-eight year old student who loves surfing the web idly - she'll go anywhere that a pretty link wants to take her..." etc etc.

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Here's a great article about the web-reading habits of lower-literacy users:
Lower-Literacy Users