There is lot of fuss made in website development meetings about the "Average Website User". I often hear statements like "Studies show that the average web user doesn't like drop-down menus.", or "The average web user ignores most sponsor ads if they are placed in a sidebar." Or there was the marketing exec who looked me in the eye and said, "The average web user uses Internet Explorer, not Firefox."

I'm going to let you in on a secret: there is no average web user.

Yes, There Are Average Behaviors

Now I have a bit of social science training, so I should add that I do not mean that average/median behaviors do not exist. I'm sure that a certain percentage of us hate or misuse drop-down menus, and Internet Explorer had an 85% market share when my marketing friend made his comment. These numbers exist, and studying them as general web trends is worthwhile to some degree.

The point is that the designing your website towards these median behaviors is a poor strategy. Instead of worrying about these statistics, you should instead focus on your actual audience and the context of your website.

The Average User is Not Using Your Website

Every website, even the big ones, have specific markets and audiences they serve. Each of these audiences is unique and uses the internet differently. Therefore, your website should be designed for YOUR users instead of a theoretical profile of median behaviors - it is unlikely that your audience consists of too many people that match the "Average User" profile.

For example, drop-down menus might be a poor choice if your site offers information about retirement benefits for senior citizens. In general, older users probably have a harder time with them than younger users. But if your site is a directory for finding BitTorrent videos and concerts, drop-downs might provide a nice look and functionality your audience will enjoy.

I'm not trying to generalize based on age or site content, that would be impossible. I'm merely trying to show that your audience is most likely different than any "Average User" statistics might tell you. 55% of people might misuse drop-down menus, but 95% of the users of your site might find them helpful and pleasing.

Context is More Important Than Median Behaviors

Besides analyzing your audience, it's also crucial to remember that every site is unique and has its own experience and context. Is there any proof that the websites used to profile "Average Users" were anything like your website? Keeping with my example, drop-down menus might be great in a certain situation, but horrible in others. Instead of asking what the "Average User" likes, you should instead ask "What will THIS user do with THIS element on THIS page of THIS site?".

This idea of context leads to an important lesson in web design: there is no "right" way to design a website. Websites are much more unique and varied than this idea allows, and there are rarely any ideas that are 100% correct across all situations. There are best practices in most situations and things that are correct in 95% of circumstances, but there are few, if any, universal truths to web design.

Apply This To Your Website: Usability Testing

Instead of worrying about the "Average User", let's worry about the actual ones. Discovering the behaviors and trends of your users takes solid usability testing, which should be done during development. I'll save a complete explanation for another post, but the basic idea is to test your potential designs on real people who are in your general audience. Then, instead of saying "55% of web users like XYZ", you can say "95% of REAL USERS of our website liked XYZ and used it appropriately."

And the next time someone asks about the "Average Web User", please respond that he/she/it has not be heard from in a long time.