Increasingly, concepts from other fields are turning out to be relevant to contemporary approaches to design. It used to be the case that target marketing meant choosing which magazine your company would advertise its products in. However, now with everyone online, targeting also affects design. What's really interesting about this trend is that it is perhaps the most conservative industry, banking, that is breaking new ground here.

A recent article in Bank Systems Technology outlines how several banks are including social computing Web 2.0 features in the design of their web presence. They're doing it to appeal to a younger demographic and also to provide those customers a user interface experience that they're familiar with - including AJAX-based responsive Rich Internet Application user interfaces as well as blogging and commenting. It is also interesting that this trend tends to be more advanced in Canada. I think all designers should take note that the demographics like age are important to factor into their design work. While some may have done that previously, the new trend suggests that demographic design targeting may be key to addressing core business objectives increasingly being articulated by business stakeholders.