DAM Systems Lack Of Contextual Awareness
David Diamond of Picturepark wrote an article last week about Digital Asset Management’s Missing Context of Discussion for CMSWire.com. Ironically (given the subject matter) we missed the opportunity to cover it sooner after it was published due to a large project myself and colleagues here at DAM News were working on to assess why the client’s DAM system was producing such poor quality search results. I intend to return back to this subject and discuss this article in more detail later as we are also writing a research paper about this topic (to be featured on DAM News).
If you missed the article, it is a little longer than some others CMSWire.com run, but as always with David’ articles, there is a lot of useful stuff with many insights for anyone responsible for implementing a DAM initiative. He discusses how DAM systems lack contextual awareness (to understand what users mean based on their circumstances – e.g. what they are searching for). He also explains how in order to compensate for this, excessive amounts of metadata will be applied which rather than producing more accurate results simply increases the volume of positive matches (and potentially makes the user’s task harder). He outlines some possible techniques for optimising your DAM based on this knowledge but does acknowledge that the issue is (in part) created by the end user’s own lack of clarity.
“What goes on between a DAM and a DAM user often feels much like this…You: “Hi, Tech Support. My computer is running so slowly that I can barely type this message to you now.”…Them: “I am very sorry to hear that you are having problems with your computer and my sole purpose in life at this very moment is to help you in the best way possible. May I start by asking if the computer is currently turned on?”…The equivalent happens regularly between DAM and DAM user. The user asks a question (the query) and the DAM replies (the results) in a way that leaves the user thinking the DAM is stuck in stupid mode.” [Read More]
One last word of advice with this piece, you need to read every page closely, it’s not one for skimming over if you want to get the most from it.
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