Average age of TalkGraphics users.

**handrawn** · 19 September 2018, 07:22 AM

so what happened to <20 ? not that it applies to me except with my cartoonist hat on maybe

millennials may be far more interested in facebook/twitter and the like than 'old-style forums and they grow up 'spoliled for choice' program-wise

**Acorn** · 19 September 2018, 07:27 AM

Radio 4 listener, but still young in heart.

Should I not get 6 votes for the different Xara Desktop products I use?

Is the TG calendar only visible to Moderators?

Acorn

**pauland** · 19 September 2018, 10:18 AM

As a Xara user how old are you?

..exactly the same age that I am as an Adobe user, a Sketch user, an Apple user.. LOL

I think it's always been fairly clear that the TG demographic is long in the tooth. I suspect that the TG demographic is also heavily skewed by long-time users that remember when Xara was pretty exciting software. I remember my WOW moment discovering it at a design exhibition in Islington, London. Good old Xara Studio 1.0. Xara software lost that WOW factor many years ago, sadly. In fairness there isn't too much WOW software about any more - I've become used to seeing good software.

If the actual user demographic mirrors the TG demographic then the software is doomed.

**ernie-f** · 19 September 2018, 12:08 PM

Many young students who learn graphic design will not know Xara at all. Teaching at the university and in Germany is exclusively done with Adobe CC. All major agencies that also train typesetters use Adobe.
A few know Corel or now Affinity. The fact is, however, that only Adobe software is trained and a defacto industry standard.
How are young people supposed to know the benefits of Xara? Xara calls itself professional but does not participate in the professional DTP market. It fails on all sides to pick up young users.

**Cloud** · 21 September 2018, 02:35 PM

Have to agree with Ernie above, any university/college and school will teach the adobe stuff and open software such as wordpress. This is then taken to the workplace where experience/knowledge of adobe software is preffered. Xara/magix/whatever is limited in their marketing - a while back I posted a thread about how xara had missed out on a massive opportunity to grab people forced to leave adobe muse and companies like webflow benefited because they bothered to market their product and were keeping in touch with what is going on.

It doesn't suprise me that the demographic is so high, but I did expect at least some in their 20s.

**LucaWeb** · 21 September 2018, 02:52 PM

28 years but I'm not part of the category charts say I'm a beginner novice who delights in drawing and create logos and pixel art.

**pauland** · 21 September 2018, 03:00 PM

Originally Posted by LucaWeb

28 years but I'm not part of the category charts say I'm a beginner novice who delights in drawing and create logos and pixel art.

Welcome!

What made you choose the software and how did it come to your attention?

**pauland** · 21 September 2018, 02:56 PM

Originally Posted by Cloud

I did expect at least some in their 20s.

How would these people ever hear about Xara software and why should they find it appealing?

If they want vector software they have plenty of alternatives, including affinity.
If they want a photo editor they have plenty of alternatives, including affinity.
If they want a page layout program they have alternatives which will soon include Affinity.
If they want a web publisher there are plenty of alternatives, including Wordpress.

Until Magix became involved with Xara I had never heard of them and I never see them mentioned outside of these forums. I bought Xara back in the day when it was ahead of the game with very few competitors.

On the subject of Adobe, they are on the slide, but still currently the de-facto standard. Most people I follow or interact with online aren't using Photoshop or illustrator for web or app design. The new trend is towards design tools that support collaboration and are targeted towards web and app design, often with animation support and simulation of final designs as apps or web pages. Adobe's attempt at this market is XD.

Adobe has abandoned several software projects and I think they won't be the de-facto standard for web/app design in a few years. I'm not sure what will because there are several close competitors. I think the interoperabilty of Adobe software and the sector standardisation for Adobe's file formats has saved them.

TG isn't necessarily representative of the Magix/Xara userbase but I've thought for some time that the demographic is very old in comparison with other competitors. I don't see anything that would make that change.