Designing Information Material

Designing Information Material 4(1+3)

Lesson 3: Key Steps in Planning Information Material

Specify Your Communication Objectives

A communication objective is the specific impact you expect to produce from exposure to your communication materials. You may have several objectives for your various materials. Knowing your objectives is important when you begin to develop your materials because:

• You will refer to them when reviewing existing materials;
  
• You will refer to these objectives continually in the development process; and
  
• They will help you decide which theories to use in developing messages for your materials.

The extension program goals combined with the communication purpose and the information about your intended audiences (farmers/farm women) can help you to decide what specific communication objectives you want to achieve
It is important to ensure that your objectives are:

• Supportive of your overall program’s goals and policies;
  
• Reasonable and realistic (achievable);
  
• Specific to the change desired, the population to be affected, and the time period during which change should occur;
  
• Measurable, to allow you to track progress toward desired results; and
  
• Prioritized to make the best use of resources.