How Complicated Can Storing Digital Assets Be?

via Poll Results: Usability is Top Digital Asset Management (DAM) Challenge.

Now maybe you are sitting back asking just how complicated can a digital asset management system be to use. All you are doing is storing assets like images, videos, audio, etc. Tag’em and let people do searches. That’s not complicated is it?

Well, it really isn’t quite that straightforward as our experts tell us. And for the most part, they aren’t surprised that usability topped the list of challenges. As Seth Earley told us:

Digital assets (images, photos, etc) are notoriously difficult to tag and if they are not tagged then there really isn’t any way to access them. So for DAM, poor tagging = poor findability = poor usability.

Stephanie Lemieux said that this is a top concern with many of her clients who are going through tool selection and customization projects. Along with a lot of really good functionality, many DAM solutions have issues related to complex interfaces, multi-step processes and alignment with current work processes.

Theresa Regli, agrees saying that usability is partly an issue because organizations tend to make product selection based on functionality and don’t always test the tools to see how usable they are.

You need to really USE a tool before you can say it’s usable – looks aren’t everything. Sometimes when I work with product selection teams the best-looking tool ends up losing out after hands-on testing because it’s just not as functionally useful as another tool.

Continues @http://www.cmswire.com

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