[Sigia-l] Medium and Market (was IA for non-web based projects)

[Thomas Vander Wal]

There are some trends in this thread that would be helpful to outline.
Keeping within the video (including film, television, and advertising on
these two related media) there are elements that have an impact on how
user-centered (including user testing, which seems to be the bright line)
the development is.

Film, a.k.a. Movies, are often considered an artistic endeavor, which
permits the director, screen writer, actors, etc. to freely craft their
story and interpretation.  The goal of the film is not directly to sell a
product (other than itself), as the goal is to entertain or emote a
reaction.  Increasingly, with large budget films, there is a lot of user
testing of scripts, concepts, actors in parts, etc. early in the film's
development stages.  The goal of the testing is to recuperate the investment
as easily as possible.  In past years the testing has been with other
creative types who have *insight* into what will and will not work.  (The
extended DVD of *Finding Nemo* shows the creatives working with other
creatives to hone their story, characters, cinematography, etc.)

Television follows a far more formulaic structure.  There are relative
standards for situation comedies, drama, reality shows, etc.  Using these
set structures allows for *best practices* to be implemented.  At exact
moments there will be a commercial break, which will have a *hook* to keep
the audience from switching away. As well, the shows are written to be cut
down for more commercials in syndication, with out losing too much of the
story.  Television is also considered less a freeform media when compared to
film.  Given this the creative types create within the structures of their
genre and medium.  Concepts of shows are very often tested early on in their
life with storyboards, actors in roles, filmed synopsis, sets, etc. put
before the user/audience.  The goal of television is have a popular show so
to sell advertising, hence the user testing. If a show can hit a demographic
that is considered to have ample buying power even a poorly rated show can
stay on the air for years.

Advertising is extremely user/audience focused.  The audience is extremely
well defined with volumes of market trends and personas are crafted from
these demographics and are very important to the crafting of the message,
vocabulary, images used, genre of filming, etc.  Everything along the line
is tested with members of the known audience.  The goal of advertising is to
sell products and shape opinion.  Advertisements are not created for
everybody, they are for an audience that has been meticulously defined from
volumes of marking data.

The depth to to which user-centered involvement is adhered seems to be
largely predicated on the selling of products versus pure entertainment/art.
Marketing data also plays a large part in the development of the content and
presentation of the content.  As the Web is growing some sites are gathering
much better information about their users as a whole and are using this
volume of data to recraft as a starting point when recrafting their sites.
As an IA we benefit from this data as it helps define the persona and user
groups much more easily, it is also in these organizations that the focus is
on the user, or can be put on the user most easily to help tie the business
goals to actual expected outcomes.

All the best,
Thomas