Audience, copyright and software licensing
Designing for the right audience, and respecting copyright.
Learning objectives
What you need to be able to do
Teacher-mapped phrasing — check against the official Cambridge syllabus for exact wording.
- 9.1.1Explain the importance of audience appreciation when creating an ICT solution.
- 9.1.2Describe copyright legislation and types of software licensing.
5 minute read
Audience, copyright and software licensing
Audience appreciation
Before creating anything, identify who will use it — their age, prior knowledge, interests, reading level and any accessibility needs. Everything then follows:
- A presentation for young children needs large text, bright colours, simple language and plenty of images.
- The same content for professionals needs precise terminology, detailed data, and a restrained, formal style.
Ignoring the audience is the most common reason a technically competent solution fails: it may be accurate and still unusable.
Accessibility
Consider users with visual impairments (large fonts, high contrast, screen-reader compatibility, alt text on images), hearing impairments (subtitles on video), and motor difficulties (keyboard navigation, large click targets).
Copyright
Copyright protects the creator's work — software, images, music, text — from being copied or used without permission. Under copyright legislation it is illegal to:
- copy software, music or films without permission;
- use someone's images or text in your own work without permission or attribution;
- share licensed software with others or use one licence on more machines than allowed.
Material found through a web search is not free to use simply because it is visible. Use images licensed for reuse, or your own, and acknowledge sources.
Software licensing
- Commercial / proprietary — paid for, with restrictions on copying and installation.
- Freeware — free to use, but the source code is not available and it remains copyrighted.
- Shareware — free to try for a limited period or with limited features; payment is required for the full version.
- Open source — the source code is available and may be modified and redistributed under the licence terms.
Note the distinction candidates most often miss: freeware is free but closed; open source is about access to the code, not merely price.
Think of it like this
Publishing without considering the audience is cooking a meal without asking who is eating. The food may be excellent and still be wrong — too spicy for a child, too plain for a critic.
Worked examples
Method, step by step
A charity is producing a web page about healthy eating for primary school children. Describe two design decisions they should make and justify each.
- 1The audience is young children with limited reading ability and short attention spans.
- 2Use large, simple text and short sentences, because children are still developing reading skills.
- 3Use bright colours and plenty of images or cartoons, because visual content holds young attention and conveys ideas without reliance on text.
Use large, simple text with short sentences, since young children have limited reading ability; and use bright colours with plenty of images, since visual content engages them and communicates without heavy reading.
Common misconceptions
- Thinking anything on the internet is free to copy. Visibility is not permission; copyright applies unless the licence says otherwise.
- Treating freeware and open source as the same. Freeware costs nothing but hides its source code; open source publishes the source code and allows modification.
- Believing a copyright notice is required for protection. Work is protected automatically on creation.
In the exam
- For audience questions, name a specific design feature and tie it to a specific audience characteristic — "large text because young children are still learning to read".
- Learn the four licence types with one distinguishing feature each; questions frequently ask you to identify which suits a scenario.