Understanding audiences is fundamental to user experience design and to any user-centred design process. But how do we put this into practice? For an existing product or service there may be a wealth of user insights and feedback, but for a new product, formal audience research is invaluable. Audience research is different from usability research in that it examines users’ behaviours and motivations rather than their usage of a particular product, although both are necessary for a user-centred design process. Audience research for UX is also different from market research - it is not concerned with market size, pricing or how to market a particular product idea. Instead it helps us identify the problems that users are trying to solve in their lives in order that we might use design to solve them in new better ways. This presentation explores how audience research can help us design better products.