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Technology demographics

Posted in Tech/Development on: Wednesday, August 9, 2006 by Paul Boag

For a long time marketers have made use of various demographic scales to classify different types of people. Well now, thanks to research carried out at the University College London it is possible to classify people by their use of technology.

Using information from the most recent UK census and data firm Experian, the researchers at UCL have created 23 "e-types". These 23 e-types are themselves organised into seven broader categories including:

  • E-unengaged
  • E-marginalised
  • Becoming engaged
  • E for entertainment and shopping
  • E-independents
  • Instrumental E-
  • E- users
  • E- experts

However, the researchers have gone further than simply creating the 23 e-types. They have mapped those types onto the 1.7 million British postcodes. By entering a postcode on their site, you can see the e-type for that postcode. This provides an incredible granularity down to approximately 17 households!

Unsurprisingly the ability to see the e-type of your individual postcode has created a lot of interest in the press. However, it is not the postcode functionality that particularly excites me. Although knowing the technical literacy of a postcode is interesting, it does not really help me as a web designer. I cannot think of a single site, which I have worked on that is aimed at a specific geographic area.

What I find more interesting is the definition of the e-types. This could prove a very powerful tool for web to understand the target for a site. Used in conjunction with personas I see this as an excellent way quantify how users will interact with your site.

What did you think about this post?

5 Comments

Comments are for the discussion of this post. If you have other questions / comments then post them to the forum or send me an email

  • Simon says:
    09/08/2006 at 10:52 am

    Its an interesting concept, but as you say of relatively little use. I tried my postcode and it came up with A06-Elderly Marginalised. Obviously the demographic has changed significantly since the 2001 survey.
    It would be interesting to see the data that they used to generate the e-types, or is that 5 years out of date as well?
    BTW, nice spelling mistake – ‘UCI’.
    Simon

    Reply
  • Mark Stephenson says:
    09/08/2006 at 1:27 pm

    I just tried my postcode and it insulted me. It appears I’m only a small time net shopper. The cheek!
    I think my wife would disagree though.

    Reply
  • Richard Quick says:
    09/08/2006 at 7:59 pm

    Ha – I got A : E-unengaged and type A03 : Technology as fantasy.
    That actually sounds about right for the area I live, but it’s still funny.

    Reply
  • Mark says:
    10/08/2006 at 8:32 am

    Would help if they where to cover N.Ireland. There is me thinking its part of the UK. Maybe not

    Reply
  • Simon Brookes says:
    25/08/2006 at 2:53 pm

    If you live in Yorkshire are you classified as E-by Gum!
    Sorry.

    Reply

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Additional Information

Produced by Headscape

Boagworld is produced by the web design agency Headscape founded by Marcus, Paul and Chris Scott. Headscape also has a number of other talented guys who blog. Check them out.

  • Craig Rowe is one of our amazing developers and writes some superb posts on everything from .net to AIR apps.

  • Ed Merritt is a Headscape designer who's blog contains examples of his work and a number of free Wordpress themes.

  • Dave McDermid is a Headscape developer who has an excellent blog. He blogs on everything from AJAX to security.

  • Rob Borley is one of our project managers and blogs regularly on client and project management issues.

  • Leigh Howells is our multimedia design guru (whatever one of those is). He blogs on a mixture of design and music.

Paul elsewhere

Paul just can't shut up. He publishes regular audioboos, has a personal blog and is addicted to twitter. He also writes and speaks regularly. Check out the most recent below: