Differentiation among groups of users is key when your site is meant for a broad audience. Giving your users exactly what they are looking for, making it easy for them to find that and providing a feeling of customization will make them happy.
All audiences should be represented in your interface but the real estate for each group can vary. Logic says that the most important users will get by default the biggest part of your home page design.
Good design example could be the Bank of America site. Their menu is basically divided in Personal banking, Small Business and Corporate & Institutional, making a clear difference among user groups. By default, the Small Business menu is set so this might be Bank of America’s core group. Clicking on other menus makes the home page to change and adapt to these groups.
Different but also good design example is Expedia, the online travel agency. They have special menu items representing user’s mental model, which somehow also represents a group of costumers (I need tickets!, I need a whole vacation package!, etc.) Dividing the menu in Flights, Hotels, Cars, Vacation Packages and Cruises (and etc.) makes users happy as they don’t have to investigate the whole site to get what they need.
The bad design example for the end. I don’t like Opera Software menu because, in my opinion, hides the best thing this company has to offer, browsers for different platforms. That obviously represent different groups; people looking for downloads and product information about Opera for desktops, for mobiles and for PDAs. That’s represented on this menu but a little bit hidden.
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Disclaimer: with this kind of article I want to point out usability and interface problems some sites could have. Please do not take this as an attack, take it as a free advice. I would like to make clear that this design problems could happen for many reasons, including lack of time or money.
very interesting, but I don’t agree with you
Idetrorce