Stage 1: Identifying Audiences

The first consideration when designing a science communication protocol is the audience. Being able to characterize audiences means that we can optimize communications tailored to that specific audience.

Firstly, the level of knowledge the audience has on the subject matter you wish to communicate must be considered. In this regard, typically only academics, relevant industry leaders and some university students will have any knowledge on said subject matter. If they have no background, considering the level of education (High School Graduate, Undergraduate, Postgraduate, etc.) will be helpful (the more academic an audience is, the more comfortable they are with academic terms and complex ideas, even without a prior background on the subject). If both parameters are unknown, the age of the audience can be taken into consideration (older audiences tend to be more mature and should at least have a high-school/university education and vice-versa). If your audience belongs to a certain archetype (i.e. if they are children), consider unique characteristics to your audience (i.e. children have short attention spans, do not know too much and prefer visual media).

Secondly, we must consider why the audience should care about the subject matter being discussed. To start, consider your project; Is it something that is likely to have wide societal impact? Is it likely to be controversial? Is it novel or interesting? Does it fit in with the issues society is dealing with today (zeitgeist)? Then think about how the socio-economic and cultural background of the audience may impact the reasons they should care about your project. The reasons why audience should care about your project will shape the way you communicate with them.

Stage 2: Evaluating Familiarity

Thirdly, we should consider the purpose of science communication for your project, to what extent does the audience need to know the finer details or background of your project. Following Bloom's taxonomy, we can roughly define levels of knowledge required for an audience. If we expect the audience to have a low level of understanding after communication, we should expect them to be able to remember and understand the basic points that underlie the project. If we expect them to have a medium level of understanding after communication, we should expect them to be able to apply and analyze the project (find new applications and point out certain issues with the project). Audiences who are expected to have an advanced level of understanding should be able to critically evaluate and synthesize new approaches for the project. Expectations must be realistic however and you should only expect only one level of improvement. It is also highly unlikely that anyone other than academics or industry leaders will be able to critically evaluate and analyze the project as the level of background knowledge required is far too high.

Stage 3: Designing Communication

Fourthly, we need design a method of communication suitable for these audiences. To start, consider when and where communication will occur. Certain audiences would prefer specific times and places for communication to occur. If communication is happening on the cloud, consider the online media being used, the audiences of specific social media are relatively well characterized and some media allow targeted marketing of audiences which extends the reach of your communication. Next, consider the medium of communication, you could choose online communications which has wider reach but less responsivity or offline communications which may have lesser reach but have better interactivity. Additionally, consider which media your audience is more likely to consume. Lastly, consider the type of communication that you will be using, certain audiences prefer certain types of communication (whether it be text, audio, visual or video based) and it is wise to tailor the type of communication with the audience chosen.

Stage 4: Improving Design

Lastly, it is very important to be interactive and dynamic with science communication. To increase the effectiveness of future science communication, it is important to always get feedback not just with your project but with the communication itself. A few important metrics to consider is verifying if the target audience is the same as the intended audience, how much did they learn (how much did they know before versus how much they know now), attempting to see if there is a change in perception with your project if they had a prior opinion and whether they have any advice or issues they had with the way the project was communicated. Consider the method of feedback as well, people prefer quick and easy to answer feedback however these forms of feedback may not be as comprehensive. Finding a compromise with good question design is very important.

Example demonstrating how our protocol can be used

An iGEM team had a project investigating co-cultures wanted more public awareness of the importance of co-cultures on the daily lives of people (i.e. has wide societal impact). They chose children as their target audience and their goal was to educate them on the importance of co-cultures in their daily lives and did not expect prior knowledge on the subject. Following the science communication design framework, they would be completing the first two steps. They then considered that an online based media would have a wide reach for their target audience and that they needed to choose a media that would not only be attractive to children but also informative. They ultimately chose to create a video game as a visual media it is easy for children to understand what is on the screen. Moreover, as it was interactive, it was able to capture the attention of children for extended periods of time. Lastly, they used surveys to collect not only feedback on the game, but also feedback for potential new applications for their project on co-cultures as well. This particular team was the Imperial College 2016 team and they won Best Public Engagement and Education that year.