Know your audience

Date adopted: 
July 20, 2018
Last update: 
August 26, 2020

Your writing will be most effective if you understand who you’re writing for.

To understand your audience you should know:

  • how they behave, what they’re interested in or worried about - so your writing will catch their attention and answer their questions
  • their vocabulary - so that you can use the same terms and phrases they’ll use to search for content

When you have more than one audience, make your writing as easy to read as possible so it’s accessible to everyone.

Find out more about identifying and writing to user needs.

The Yukon.ca audience

The Yukon.ca audience is potentially anyone living in the Yukon who needs government information and services, or people in other parts of Canada, or abroad, who want to do business in or travel to Yukon. This means government must communicate in a way that most people understand.

The best way to do this is by using common words and working with natural reading behaviour.

If you’re writing for a specialist audience, you still need to make sure everyone can understand what the content is about.