Audience data should be used to inform your content development:

• Knowing what users buy, select or search for tells you the topics you should include and prioritise. It can also tell you the language that should be used in headings or metadata to improve searching.

• Knowing what users do not like or bounce off tells you which topics you could move down in priority, or what may need to be rewritten to make it clearer.

• Specific suggestions from users can be fed into your content plan.

The data gathered from user research and usability testing can be used to ensure that the product’s features and content are aligned with the target audience. You can alter the content structure if it does not work as intended, change the language if users find it too difficult or unsuitable, and add any functionalities that may be missing.

If users’ biographical data are available, they can be correlated with the test data to see how different groups respond to the content. Patterns in their responses may reflect demographic factors (eg age, education, language background, professional training) and suggest how content can be fine-tuned.