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It’s time to set out on a journey of design discovery! A well designed user experience fulfils its purpose perfectly, but must also be aesthetically beautiful - after all it’s important to enjoy the view on your travels.
VOD platforms understand this implicitly and apply both practical and aesthetic elements to attract consumers and keep them coming back for more. To deliver the best experience possible, entertainment providers need to dive deep into the minds of their viewers. With this knowledge, they can craft a UX that puts them at the centre of everything. But while a consumer user experience is considered vital, the internal user can often be overlooked.
Putting the user first
Internal media teams can certainly take a page from the consumer experience playbook. The workflows and processes that form the supply chain should be designed to perfectly fit their needs. If a happy user is more productive, then how can a user experience be designed to not only be functional, but also enjoyable? Streaming services know that they can’t deliver a flawless UX without understanding their users, and now more than ever, media organisations need to understand the needs of their internal users. Failure to do so will only increase the difficulties and frustrations that editors, media specialists, and operators face.
To avoid this scenario (and at the risk of sounding like a motivational quote) we should give users the joyful experience they deserve! Editors, media specialists and operators, all need tools that are designed with their varied use cases in mind. User interfaces and functionalities need to be just as carefully considered as they are on consumer facing VOD platforms. If the day-to-day tasks are easier and quicker to do, then a lot of the stress associated with content processing is removed, especially if those tasks are the more repetitive ones.
Managing media volume and variety
As demand for content has increased, media organisations have evolved and adapted their workflows to become more flexible and efficient. The video industry has also become increasingly competitive, and the pressure faced by entertainment providers to produce the highest quality content in the quickest possible time is immense. The volume of content that editors, media specialists and operators are required to process leaves no room in the supply chain for bottlenecks or inefficiencies.
Users need the right tools for the job, and those tools need to be useful, time-saving, and easy to use. It’s important to also identify and remove any unnecessary steps or activities in the process to avoid the content tsunami effect. Doing this reduces unnecessary effort on the part of the user, and at the same time helps to streamline and speed up the process. Reducing the required effort to reach a goal helps operators get where they need to quicker with less frustration.
Every workflow is different, and user needs can vary across departments, even if the core workflow function is the same. There is a lot of nuance within a media company and so it’s vital to listen to the teams on the ground, rather than make assumptions about user requirements. This is the key to mapping out the UX journey, and it starts with direct engagement through consultations and workshops. User engagement helps to identify pain points, across a range of content processing workflows such as logging, curation, validation, QC, media segmentation, and editing. So it’s important to have user engagement from a mix of media professionals right from the beginning of the process.
Achieving seamless integration
Recognising that no solution can be all things to all users is vital. The prevalence of cloud-based technology is making it easier than ever for media companies to take a mix and match approach and choose the best solutions and services for their different requirements. By doing this, entertainment providers can ensure that they have the first-rate tools in place, no matter what the task. This sort of specialisation is vital in media workflows. Otherwise, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail!
Tools and workspaces should provide the user with a consistent and effective UX. But, to keep things harmonious, success relies on separate solutions being integrated seamlessly. Mapping out the UX journey by listening to users, understanding what they’re trying to achieve and finding out what is standing in their way, is the key to ensuring that they have the right tools at their fingertips to work efficiently and with ease.
At Codemill, we work with you to realise your media ambitions and create a truly beautiful workflow that keeps users happy, and at the same time increases productivity. Get in touch to find out more about our Digital Services so you can realise your media ambitions.