Digital Media Production Roadmap - revised 2011

Digital Media Production Road Map2011 CWC / Corus Digital Media & Technology Career Accelerator

May 13th, 2011

Digital Media Consultant

[email protected]

www.mitreboxmedia.com

Laura Baxter

www.mitreboxmedia.comDigital Media Production Road Map

digital media production roadmapNavigate the complexities of digital media development with an understanding of: strategic planning activities, experience design methodologies, technology platforms and how they intersect and contribute to the successful execution of digital media products.

agenda1. Introduction

2. Project Process

3. The Importance of Strategy & Planning

4. Understanding Stakeholder & User Requirements

5. Group Exercise

6. Technology 101

7. Questions


Successful online products and experiences start with a deep understanding of stakeholder and user requirements.

By focusing on people, their activities, and the context of those activities, MitreBox Media works with organizations to create digital media solutions

that align business objectives with user expectations.


project processA systematic approach to digital media guides a project from start to finish. Ensuring a successful product every time.

Standard Digital Media Process


project process

DiscoverEnsure that all project stakeholders have a shared, agreed upon understanding of what the project must accomplish.

activities

• Identify project stakeholders

• Determine potential risks, challenges and unknowns

• Capture business requirements, project goals and stakeholder expectations

• Discuss timing

• Discuss budget

deliverables

• Project Brief

• Needs Assessment


project process

DefineProduce a blueprint for the final product to ensure that no surprises occur in the Design and Development phases.

activities

• Review and evaluate existing content, identify gaps and improvements

• Evaluate competitive products for their respective strengths and weaknesses

• Define the target audience, user groups and profiles

• Develop the user experience, including IA, wireframes and functional specs

• Identify technical requirements regarding software, security, and databases

• Recommend development platforms, tools and hosting solutions

• Finalize production budget and project timelines

deliverables

• Content Strategy

• Competitive Analysis

• Functional Specification

• Technical Specification

• Project Plan & Schedule

• Production Budget


DesignEstablish a creative direction that captures the unique brand and personality of the product.

activities

• Complete design research and prepare creative brief

• Creation of visual design concepts

• Finalize design concept

• Design all unique page templates

• Prepare design documentation and style guide

deliverables

• Creative Brief

• Concept Mocks

• Final Design PSDs

• Style Guide

project process


DevelopDepending on timing and the nature of the project, a single linear build or multiple rapid iterations.

activities

• Design production

• Integrate design (front-end code)

• Complete back-end code and database development

• Developer unit testing

• Create test plan

deliverables

• Alpha Site

• Test Plan

project process


DeploySophisticated planning and technical skills ensure a successful implementation into the live environment.

activities

• Execute test plan and complete bug fixes

• Complete CMS documentation

• Content team training and content population

• Implement analytics code and ad serving

• Configure and implement live environment

deliverables

• Beta Site

• Live Site

• Training Documents

project process


Measure & MaintainEvaluate the project to determine if it is meeting the defined objectives, and ensure the organizational structure, process, and resources are properly optimized to maintain and grow the product.

activities

• Perform post-mortem analysis

• Define ongoing resourcing, management, operational requirements and costs

• Complete ROI analysis

• Automate and review analytics reports

• Recommendations and strategies for updates and improvements

deliverables

• Post -Mortem Report

• Workflow Documentation

• Operating Budget

• ROI Reports

project process


the importance of strategy and planningToo often organizations undervalue the importance of strategy and planning when starting a digital media project.

Typical objections to strategic planning:

• we don’t have time

• there is no budget for that right now

• it interferes with creativity

Seems easier or more appealing to start at the design phase, and just figure things out as things go along.

This is far from the truth.

What happens if when we ignore strategic planning?

• Digital media products are undertaken blindly based on a desire to utilize new technologies and follow the trends.

• The choices made and projects completed are often bad business decisions, costing organizations more than the small benefits achieved.


the importance of strategy and planningNumerous variables need to be considered when estimating the time and budget required to effectively complete the necessary strategic planning activities.

How long should it take?

30% to 50% of complete project timeline

examples 12 week project = 3 to 6 weeks of this dedicated to strategy and planning8 month project = 2 to 4 months of this dedicated to strategy and planning

How much should it cost?

20% to 30% of complete project budget

examples $25,000 project = $5,000 to $7,500 of this dedicated to strategy and planning$$200,000 month project = $40,000 to $50,000 of this dedicated to strategy and planning


understanding stakeholder & user requirementsDuring the Discovery and Define stages of a project a lot of questions need to be asked to ensure a complete understanding of stakeholder and user requirements.

The answers to these questions ultimately shape the end product.

There are 2 primary activities that are instrumental to understanding stakeholder and user requirements.

• Needs Assessment

• User Experience Design

These serve as the backbone to the overall strategic plan.


Needs Assessment

• Input into a digital media projects comes from a variety of stakeholders including, the business owner; and individual representatives from other departments (sales, marketing, PR, operations, legal, IT, etc.)

• Conduct a series of meetings and stakeholder interviews

• Define the project and desired outcomes from both the business and project perspective

• By identifying and addressing the needs of all project stakeholders upfront, you can make confident decisions, knowing the chosen solutions are targeted at solving the real project objectives

the questions asked should provide insight into:

• Stakeholder roles & responsibilities

• Objectives & vision

• Customers & users/audience

• Existing solution, content & features

• Desired solution, content & features

understanding stakeholder & user requirements

• Content

• Technology

• Creative direction & design

• Barriers & challenges

• Timing & budget


User Experience Design

• Online users and consumers are becoming more sophisticated.

• Their expectations are higher and their attention spans worse than ever.

• Failure to deliver a product that meets the immediate needs of a user results in a lost opportunity, and a frustrated user.

• Interactive digital media professionals need to elevate their products and content to deliver on the user’s expectations and goals.

• It’s no longer enough to think about the organizational goals or personal preferences.

user experience design activities

• Content review & evaluation

• Competitive analysis

• Focus groups & user feedback


• Personas & user case scenerios

• Information Architecture

• Wireframes & Functional Specification


Content Review & Evaluation

• Quality content is crucial

• It’s what people go online to find

• Conduct an audit of your existing content, recommend improvements, identify gaps and define requirements for new content development

• Ensure your product contains information that is valuable to your user

Competitive Analysis

• Examine the features, functionality, tools, content, usability, and design of competing products or services

• Identify specific strengths, opportunities and best practices

• Knowing the actions of competitive products, provides a better understanding of the factors that most influence users



User Research & Consultation

• Communicating directly with your users is the best way to find out about their real needs and expectations, validate your current ideas and designs, and probe for improvements.

• There are many opportunities to connect with your users. Options include; user surveys, focus groups and usability testing.

Personas & User Case Scenarios

• The key to a great user experience is to build a lasting relationship between a business and the user

• Create unique personas that describe specific user groups and outline the activities they want to perform

• By capturing and understanding the user’s goals and activities, you can identify the touch points where they interact with a product or business



Information Architecture

• Engaging user experiences go beyond navigation design and content structure

• Need to understand how people acquire, store, and communicate information

• Use this understanding to organize and present data in a meaningful, clear and intuitive manner

Wireframes & Functional Specification

• No detail is too small

• By outlining a comprehensive blueprint of the final product, to ensure the user-experience is aligned with the various departmental, business, and technical requirements of the project

• Thoroughly define the content layout and functionality, describing each element and behavior

• Provides a framework from which the creative and development team can build the project



group exercise

In Groups of 4 to 5 People

• Select an organization, company or brand – one you work with currently or something the group is interested in

• Identify an opportunity using digital media – website, mobile app, social media campaign, web series etc.

• List possible stakeholders – both internal and external if applicable

• List 10 to 15 questions to ask as part of the project Needs Assessment

Remember – the questions asked should provide insight into:

• Stakeholder roles & responsibilities

• Objectives & vision

• Customers & users/audience

• Existing solution, content & features

• Desired solution, content & features

• Content

• Technology

• Creative direction & design

• Barriers & challenges

• Timing & budget


technology 101Technology is complicated by nature. Focus on keeping things as straightforward and simple as possible.

Standard Website Structure


technology 101

Web Pages

• Commonly refered to as Front-end Development or Presentation Layer.

• The presentation layer is responsible for the display and formatting of information. It is what the end user sees.

HTTP – HyperText Transfer Protocol

• The communications protocol used to connect to web servers on the Internet or on a local network (intranet).

• Its primary function is to establish a connection with the server and send HTML pages back to the user’s browser. HTML – HyperText Markup Language

• The document format used on the web

• Web pages are built with HTML tags, which are codes embedded in the text. Tags define the page layout, fonts and hypertext links to other documents on the Web

• HTML also defines all the graphic elements used on the page, which are separate files on the server


CSS – Cascading Style Sheets

• A script loaded via HTML that defines the appearance and layout of text and other embedded objects.

XML – Extensible Markup Language

• A standard for describing data.

• XML uses a tag structure similar to HTML; however, where HTML defines how elements are displayed, XML defines what those elements contain

XHTML – Extensible Hypertext Markup Language

• XHTML combines HTML and XML into a single format.

JavaScript

• A popular scripting language that is widely supported in web browsers and other web tools.

• It adds interactive functions to HTML pages, which are otherwise static, since HTML is a display language, not a programming language.

AJAX – Asynchronous JAvaScript and XML

• AJAX allows the web page to retrieve small amounts of data from the server without reloading the entire page.

technology 101


technology 101

Applications

• Commonly refered to as Back-end Development or Functionality.

• The application layer processes data for the user.

• Multiple applications often exist within a single property or project.

examples

• Advanced Search

• Member Login

• Video Players

• Product Catalog

• E-commerce shopping cart

programming languages

• .Net

• Java

• PHP

• SQL


technology 101

Database

• A set of related files that is created and managed by a database management system (DBMS)

• DBMS software controls the organization, storage, retrieval, security and integrity of data in a database. It accepts requests from an application and instructs the operating system to transfer the appropriate data.

DBMS vendors

• Oracle

• IBM

• Microsoft


technology 101

Content Managment System (CMS)

• Software that is used to create and manage the content for a website.

• It provides for the storage, maintenance and retrieval of HTML and XML documents and all related image, audio and video files.

• Typically dependent on a particular database, a content management system (CMS) may provide all the applications necessary for website development and may include or accept plug-ins that provide banner advertising, shopping carts, blogs, wikis, newsletters, opinion polls, chat rooms and forums. These typically however require extensive customization depending on the unique project requirements.

popular CMS software

• Interwoven • Ektron • Kentico

• Vingnette • Drupal • Agility


Online Video PlatformsThe demand for online video has grown at a remarkable rate over the past 3 years, causing every organization in the world to find ways to use video on their websites.

things to consider

• content ingestion, meta data and file managment processes

• transcoding & video codec formats

• DRM (digital rights management) encryption

• distribution & syndication capabilities

• advertising & integrated monetization models

• anaylitics & measurement

• player features, controls and customization

• bandwidth costs

technology 101

popular video publishing platforms

• thePlatform

• Brightcove


Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

• Designing a Web site so that search engines find the pages easily and index them.

• The goal is to have a page rank as high up on the results list as possible, or be on the first results pag.

• SEO includes the choice of keywords used in the text paragraphs and the placement of those words on the page, both visible and hidden inside meta tags.

keep ‘em guessing

• Search engines use different criteria for ranking pages.

• The criteria is periodically changed to keep web page designers from falsely describing their pages and obtaining a permanent, high ranking.

• This is why an entire industry exists to help website owners obtain high results page ranking.

technology 101


Analytics & MeasurementFor a long time, web publishers and advertisers have been caught in the crossfire between web analytics and media metrics vendors producing starkly different numbers for their sites.

The issue is the long-standing disparity between measurement methodologies.

web analytics services

• provide traffic measurements

• use tracking pixels and server logs to generate data

• issues like accessing sites from multiple devices or locations, cookie deletion, and spider misidentification, tend to overcount the number of unique visitors to a site

vendors include

• Omniture

• Coremetrics

• Google Analytics

media metrics services

• panel-based measurements

• data generated from a group of users who have monitoring software installed on their computers

• issues like panel size or universe limitations (i.e., at-work vs. at-home vs. mobile usage) tend to undercount the number of unique visitors to a site

vendors include

• ComScore Media Metrix

• Nielsen/NetRatings

• TNS Compete

technology 101


questions

No problem is too big to solve when you put the right people in the room and empower them with knowledge, tools, and skill.


thank-you

Email [email protected]

Phone 416-603-2441

Web www.mitreboxmedia.com

Twitter @ellebeeTO

Linkedin www.linkedin.com/in/laurabaxter

Presentation Slides www.slideshare.net/lbaxter

Digital Media Production Roadmap - revised 2011

Technology

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