Know Your Digital Media Consumer [INFOGRAPHIC]

With businesses rushing to extend their digital distribution of media to connected consumer devices, and Cable television threatened by the onslaught of "OTT" (Over the Top) services, it is more important than ever to truly understand the "Digital Media Consumer". Who are they? What are their likely behaviors? What tasks will they need to accomplish, when accessing broadband user experiences across devices? Empathy Lab has collaborated with media companies to answer these questions, in an effort to help them extend their distribution of digital media products and services. The following personas have distinct needs, as it relates to digital media entertainment, and digital media service providers should focus their service design efforts around satisfying these needs.

"THE VALUE HUNTER" "The Value Hunter" is a consumer who is "shopping" for a digital media entertainment service. She is likely examining the value proposition of services in her consideration set, and comparing features, in an "apples-to-apples" manner. To satisfy the needs of "The Value Hunter", entertainment companies should make it easy to discover the value proposition for their service offering, and enable consumers to compare service features with competing services.

"THE SPORTS FAN" "The Sports Fan" is an individual who needs to stay connected with his favorite teams as well as the rivals of his favorite teams. Give him the ability to receive notifications to alert him to watch his team's games, before they are played. Provide him with scores and stats, to increase his knowledge about the sports that he loves!

"MS. CATCH-UP" "Ms. Catch-up" is a busy professional who cannot be tied down to a network timetable, to watch episodes of her favorite shows (like "Dexter"). She likely owns a DVR, and is a "time-shift" viewer of programs. Satisfying her needs requires enabling her to quickly find, watch, and receive notifications about the latest episodes of her favorite TV shows.

"THE MOVIE BUFF" "The Movie Buff" is a collector, and someone who prides himself on owning a high-end, home theater system...so the content quality better live up to his standards! Offer him high-definition, full-screen video, and hig-quality, stereo audio, to play on his surround-sound speakers. "The Movie Buff" typically looks for movies within a specific genre, so he needs the ability to filter content that way, as well as "by Director", and "by Actor". "The Movie Buff" craves user and expert reviews and ratings, so that he doesn't waste his precious time on terrible flicks!

"THE CORD CUTTER" "The Cord Cutter" probably doesn't own a TV, and, perhaps, never has owned a TV. He spends most of his day working, and consuming content, on his desktop computer. "The Cord Cutter" doesn't understand why he can't watch his favorite TV Shows and Movies on any of his connected devices (smartphone tablet). And, why should he pay for networks and content that he'll never watch? The key is, not to force him to..and to provide him with flexible service and payment options.

"THE FAMILY" "The Family" is a group persona, and each member of the household has a distinct set of needs. In order to deliver relevant programming to each member of the family, it is important to offer a unique set of recommendations and customization options, tailored to each sub-account. When considering the needs of children, in the household, it is important to offer parents more control over programming that they have access to. Parental controls, and the ability to block "mature" content, is extremely important to satisfy the needs of this persona.

The Complete INFOGRAPHIC -

I've grouped each persona into a consolidated infographic, below:

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Applications Are For Humans

Empathy Lab believes that intuitive and engaging interfaces are designed with an in-depth understanding of your end-users’ needs, behaviors, and motivations. Here is an overview of our behavioral research practice.

Apps are for Humans

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Trends in Mobile Commerce [INFOGRAPHIC]

Businesses that wish to adopt mobile commerce tactics as part of their overall, digital strategy, must first understand how consumers shop, and what tasks they perform with their mobile devices and tablets, while shopping.

When we think of "mcommerce", there is a tendency to think about it as driving sales through an application or mobile-optimized website. When mobile use cases are carefully considered, however, it becomes clear, that mobile commerce is as much about driving sales "in brick and mortar stores" , as it is, electronically (eCommerce).

I've created an infographic that highlights some recent "facts about mobile commerce." I find these quick stats useful, as a starting point, to developing an overall mobile strategy for clients, based on how their consumers are likely to use their mobile devices at key points within the shopping life-cycle.