digital asset management systems

Conducting Market Research and Shortlisting Digital Asset Management Vendors

Choosing a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system is one of the most critical decisions an organization can make for managing digital content. But diving into the DAM market without guidance can be overwhelming. Dozens of vendors offer similar feature sets, and without a clear plan, it’s easy to get lost in marketing jargon or swayed by a sleek demo that doesn’t reflect your real-world needs.

This process isn’t just about picking a product. It’s about starting a long-term relationship with a vendor who will support your team, evolve with your workflows, and play a role in your digital strategy. That’s why thoughtful market research and intentional shortlisting are essential.

Begin with Requirements, Not Features

Effective vendor research starts with clarity about your needs. Before browsing solutions, define what your organization actually requires from a DAM platform. Consider:

• Who your primary users are and what they need to do with assets
• What types of assets you manage (images, video, audio, documents)
• Metadata standards and requirements
• Integration needs (CMS, PLM, PIM, creative tools, cloud storage, preservation)
• Permission models and access control
• Reporting, analytics, and training needs

List “must-have” and “nice-to-have” features, then use that as your rubric. This helps you stay focused on what matters and avoid shiny features that don’t advance your goals.

Navigating the Digital Asset Management Marketplace

A web search is a fine place to start, but it’s not enough. Vendor websites offer a polished view, but few provide meaningful detail about true differentiators, limitations, or ideal usage scenarios.

Sites like G2, Trustpilot, and Capterra offer user-generated reviews and side-by-side comparisons, which can be helpful for spotting trends or potential red flags. That said, be aware that many listings are paid placements, and reviews often lean toward the extremes—either very positive or very negative. Also, many of the tools listed on these sites aren’t actually full-featured DAM systems. Some, like Canva or Airtable, offer DAM-like features but may not meet the broader needs of your organization. This can make it tricky to distinguish between tools that support part of the workflow and those that can truly serve as a centralized DAM solution.

For deeper and more balanced insight, explore:

• DAM News – Offers industry-specific news, vendor updates, and interviews with practitioners.
• CMSWire – Covers a range of digital workplace topics, including strong, up-to-date content on DAM.
• LinkedIn – A powerful resource where DAM professionals share real-world insights, lessons learned, and vendor experiences. Connect with industry peers who have already implemented a DAM and ask for honest feedback and recommendations.

Research Firms & Case Studies

• Reports from Gartner, Forrester, and Real Story Group provide in-depth vendor evaluations and market analysis. (You can typically find these linked from vendor websites.)
• Seek out case studies from vendor websites to understand how specific solutions perform in real-world contexts.

Industry Events

Consider attending a Henry Stewart DAM Conference, which gathers DAM professionals and vendors for learning and networking. These take place annually in:

• London (June)
• New York City (October)
• Sydney (November)
• Los Angeles (March)

These events offer an opportunity to demo different systems and meet digital asset management vendors in person, expert panels, and the opportunity to hear directly from other organizations about their selection and implementation journeys.

Learn from Peers, with Context

Colleagues can be a great source of insight. Ask what systems they use, what worked well or poorly, and what they’d do differently. These conversations reveal how vendors behave during implementation and long-term support.

But keep in mind: a DAM that works well for your pal over at their organization may not be right for you. Your users, workflows, and digital strategy are unique. A negative experience elsewhere might reflect poor alignment rather than a flawed system. Treat peer feedback as helpful context, not universal truth.

Consult the Experts

If you lack time or in-house expertise, consider hiring a DAM consultant. Specialists know the landscape, can translate your needs into actionable requirements, and can help you run a disciplined selection process. They can also facilitate internal conversations neutrally to surface user needs and pain points, ensuring decisions are informed by real requirements and aligned with strategic goals.

Digging into DAM Differentiators

Most DAMs claim to offer robust features—AI, metadata support, flexible permissions, and more. These terms sound impressive, but they rarely reveal how the system actually works in practice. Real differentiators are found in the details across all functionality areas.

For example:

• “AI” alone isn’t helpful. One platform might offer basic auto-tagging, another facial recognition, or full generative AI descriptions and AI-driven workflows tied to metadata.
• “Controlled vocabularies” are standard. A system with the ability to support complex taxonomies, multilingual thesauri, or ontology integration might stand out if this is what your organization need.
• “Permissions” are expected. Granular controls, field-level restrictions, and automated rights management are worth noting.

Ask vendors for documentation that shows actual configuration options, not just marketing overviews. In demos, go beyond checklists. Ask how it performs at scale, supports your asset types, and adapts to real-world workflows. If you don’t push, vendors may not volunteer specifics.

Engage Digital Asset Management Vendors with Purpose

Once you reach out to digital asset management vendors, you’re signaling interest. Sales reps will follow up. That’s expected. Many will work hard to win your business, and that can be a good thing. But this isn’t just a sales transaction. If you choose their system, you’ll likely be working closely with that company for years.

Pay attention to how vendors engage with you. Do they ask thoughtful questions about your needs? Offer strategic guidance? Or are they focused only on closing the deal? You want a partner, not just a product.

Ask tough, specific questions. Request use-case examples. Involve your users early so they can determine if the system fits their actual workflows.

Early demos can help you understand layout and navigation. But once you’re seriously considering a system, ask for tailored demonstrations using your scenarios and assets. This helps you evaluate both product fit and vendor fit—their responsiveness, flexibility, and support philosophy. And if you really want to get under the hood, consider doing a proof of concept with your top 1-2 finalist vendors.

Building the Shortlist

A shortlist should include only those digital asset management vendors who align with your requirements, fall within your budget, and seem like a cultural fit. Aim for five to six vendors for your Request for Information (RFI) or Request for Proposal (RFP).

After reviewing the vendors’ responses, narrow the list to two or three finalists. Invite them for detailed demos, reference calls, and technical Q&A. Note that at this point, you’re evaluating the partnership as much as the platform.

What Makes Digital Asset Management Vendors Shortlist-Worthy

A vendor becomes shortlist-worthy not just by meeting your technical and functional requirements, but by demonstrating alignment with your organization’s broader context and strategic direction. Beyond feature fit, consider factors like company size and funding stability—these can indicate whether a vendor is likely to support and evolve their platform over the long term. Geographic location may matter for support hours, data residency, or language requirements. Longevity and client retention can signal maturity and reliability, but don’t discount newer vendors if they show strong responsiveness and innovation. Experience within your industry or with similar organizations can also be a valuable indicator of how well the vendor understands your needs and challenges. Most importantly, assess cultural and strategic fit: does the vendor listen actively, offer thoughtful insights, and seem invested in your success? A good partner should feel like an extension of your team, not just a service provider.

Final Thoughts

DAM market research is both a filtering and discovery process. It takes effort, but the payoff is a well-aligned solution that fits your organization and your future.

Stay focused on your goals. Be curious, but critical. Ask hard questions. A solid selection process sets you up for long-term success—not just with the tool, but with the vendor team that supports it and the users who rely on it every day.

Next Article:

Issuing and Evaluating RFPs for DAM Solutions

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Documenting Your Digital Asset Management Criteria

Choosing a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system isn’t just about comparing feature lists from vendor websites. It starts with understanding your organization’s specific digital asset management criteria: what assets you manage, how your teams work, what’s not working, and where you’re headed. To make good decisions, you need clear documentation that captures those needs in a reusable, structured format.

This article offers practical guidance to help you build that foundation, with examples and templates you can reuse throughout your planning process, including RFP development, vendor evaluations, and internal alignment.

1. Start with a Centralized, Collaborative Document

Use a collaborative tool like Google Sheets, SharePoint, Excel, or AirTable to keep your documentation organized and visible to stakeholders. Create tabs that reflect the key areas in this article (e.g., Stakeholders, Usage Scenarios, Assets, Metadata), and structure your notes in a clear, sortable format. This makes it easier to spot patterns, prioritize shared needs, and track where each requirement came from. Your spreadsheet becomes a central source of truth for drafting your RFP, comparing vendors, and aligning internally.

2. Interview Stakeholders and Track Themes

Record short interviews (with permission) with stakeholders in marketing, creative, archives, IT, legal, and other teams that work with digital assets. Focus on what tools they use, where processes break down, and what they wish were easier.

Skip surveys. Interviews offer deeper insight into workflows, pain points, and expectations, and help you capture the language people actually use. These conversations will ground your future steps, ensuring the DAM supports real-world needs.

Tip: “Role” refers to the type of user experiencing the need (e.g., Designer, Archivist), while “Source” refers to the specific person or department who shared that insight during interviews (e.g., Design Lead, Archives Manager). This helps you see how broadly a need applies and trace it back to the original stakeholder if you need more context later.

3. Inventory Your Digital Assets (Rough Counts Are Fine)

You don’t need a full audit, just a rough idea of what you have, where it is, and who uses it. Include file types, volume estimates, and storage sizes:

This information is essential for planning migration and estimating storage needs, and vendors will need a summarized version to provide accurate costs in their proposals.

4. Look for Metadata (Even If You Don’t Call It That)

Even if you’re not using a formal metadata system yet, your team is probably tracking important information about your assets, like who created them, what they’re about, or how they can be used. That’s metadata.

Start by identifying what kind of information you already track and where it lives. It could be:

• In filenames or folder names
• In a spreadsheet
• Stored inside the file itself (like photo properties and technical information about the file)

You might also hear terms like:

• Metadata schema: This just means a consistent set of fields used to describe your assets, for example, “Photographer,” “Date Taken,” or “Usage Rights.” If you’re not using one yet, that’s okay. Start by listing what you are tracking.
• Embedded metadata: This is metadata that’s saved inside the file itself. For example, a photo might include the date it was taken, the camera model, or GPS location.

You might be tracking more metadata than you realize. Look around, especially in shared drives, naming patterns, or that old spreadsheet someone still updates manually. This will help you decide what metadata to keep as-is, what to standardize, and what metadata to capture automatically (with AI) once your DAM is in place.

5. Document Integration Needs Across Systems

Most DAM systems won’t stand alone. They often need to connect to tools your team already uses. These could include your website CMS, creative tools from Adobe, or archives and records systems.

Think about what other tools or systems it should work with.

Start by making a list of all the software your team already uses—like design programs, content management systems, cloud storage, or social media tools. Then, for each one, ask:

 “What do we need the DAM to do with this system?”

For example:

• Your designers might want to pull images straight from the DAM while working in Adobe Creative Cloud, without switching between tools.
• Your marketing team might need the DAM to automatically send approved images to your website or social media platform.

Making this list now will help you choose a digital asset management (DAM) system that plays nicely with the rest of your tech setup—and saves your team time down the line.

Even if you’re not sure how the integration will work yet, noting your needs now gives vendors and IT something concrete to work with later.

6. Capture Technical Requirements Up Front

Before you choose a digital asset management system, it’s important to document any technical expectations your IT team or organization has. These might include how users will log in, where the system is hosted, or what kind of security and accessibility standards it needs to meet.

Start with questions like:

• Does your organization require Single Sign-On (SSO)?
• Do you prefer a cloud-based system or one hosted internally?
• Are there file size limits you need to support?
• Do you have accessibility or compliance requirements?

No need for a technical spec. Just capture the basics to share with vendors.

Final Thoughts

Take your time with documenting your digital asset management needs. It can be tempting to jump straight into vendor conversations, but a clear, well-documented foundation will save time, reduce confusion, and support better decisions later on.

And don’t try to do it alone. Involve the people who will use the DAM every day. Their input will save you from surprises later, and probably make the system better for everyone.

Next Article:

Conducting Market Research and Shortlisting Vendors

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Appendix A. DAM Selection Planning Checklist

Once you’ve done some of this early prework, like interviewing stakeholders and identifying your assets, you can move on to this checklist. It’s comprehensive and may feel overwhelming at first, but you don’t have to tackle it all at once. Take it step by step. Collaborate with your main stakeholders. Check in with IT. Use this list to structure your planning, shape your RFP, and guide vendor conversations.

The good news is, if you’ve done the work above, this list will feel much more manageable and actionable.

Strategic Foundation

• What purpose will your DAM system serve, and what problems is it meant to solve?
• What does success look like, and how will you measure it?
• What does Phase 1 (Minimum Viable Product) look like?

Users & Stakeholders

• Who are your key users and stakeholders?
• Have you conducted recorded interviews with them?
• What pain points and needs did they share?
• Have you tracked themes across roles and prioritized them?
• Who will administer the DAM system?

Usage Scenarios & Requirements

• Have you written future-focused usage scenarios for core roles?
• Have you written user stories that describe desired functionality?
• Are your requirements categorized as Mandatory / Preferred / Nice to Have?
• Are sources (departments, individuals) attributed to each requirement?

Assets & Storage

• What types of digital assets do you manage? (e.g., images, videos, audio, 3D)
• Where are they stored now? (shared drives, cloud storage, hard drives)
• What’s the estimated volume (e.g., number of files) and storage size (e.g., in TB)?
• Who uses or owns each asset type?
• Are any assets at risk (e.g., no backups, fragile storage media)?

Metadata & Organization

• What metadata do you track, even informally (e.g., in file names or spreadsheets)?
• Where does that metadata live (e.g., embedded, folder structures, Excel)?
• Do you have consistent file naming conventions?
• Do you use any controlled vocabularies or taxonomies?

Workflow & Lifecycle

• Who creates, reviews, approves, and publishes digital assets?
• What do your current workflows look like, and where are the pain points?
• Do you distinguish between Work in Progress (WIP) and Final assets?
• How are assets currently tagged and ingested?
• Who will manage migration and tagging into the new DAM?

Digital Preservation

• Do any assets need long-term preservation beyond active use?
• Are there embargoing, archiving, or retention policy requirements?
• Will the DAM integrate with a preservation system or strategy?

Licensing & Rights

• Are you currently tracking usage rights and license information?
• Do you know which channels, regions, and formats assets are approved for?
• Are any licenses expired, missing, or uncertain?
• How will user roles, permissions, and security be defined in the DAM?

UX / UI

• What should the user experience be like for search, upload, and browsing?
• Do you need features like thumbnails, preview players, or 3D viewers?
• Do you need multilingual interface support?
• How will different user types (e.g., casual vs. power users) interact with the system?

Integration Requirements

• What systems should the DAM integrate with (e.g., CMS, PIM, Adobe CC)?
• What kind of integrations do you need (e.g., push/pull assets, metadata sync)?
• Are any integrations vendor-supported or likely to require customization?
• Which integrations are Mandatory, Preferred, or Nice to Have?

Technical Requirements

• Do you require SaaS (cloud-based) or on-premise deployment?
• Is SSO (Single Sign-On) required (e.g., via SAML or OAuth2)?
• Are there preferred storage providers or data residency requirements?
• What is the max file size or upload threshold?
• Do you need accessibility compliance (e.g., WCAG 2.1 AA)?
• Will the DAM need to support public delivery of assets with secure access?

Timeline & Budget

• What is your ideal timeline for selection, contracting, and go-live?
• What is your estimated first-year cost?
• What is your projected ongoing cost (e.g., storage, licensing, support)?
• Will implementation be phased or rolled out all at once?

A DAMn Good Investment 

When the going gets tough, the tough get investing.  

With economic instability, the pressure is on leaders to tighten belts yet remain top of mind for target markets. In 2025, the global economy has been wildly unpredictable with tariffs, layoffs, and consumer confidence unstable. And, one of the biggest mistakes I see business leaders make during times of uncertainty is cutting their marketing and advertising budgets altogether.  To unlock the full potential of a company’s data for informed decision-making, it is essential that data be accurately recorded, securely stored, and properly analyzed. This becomes especially critical during economic downturns, when financial scrutiny intensifies and every margin matters. Data presented to prospects and existing customers must be precise to ensure that services and differentiators are clearly and correctly communicated. Internally, the accuracy of data shared with executives and analysts can directly influence client retention, strategic direction, and budget planning.

This is also a matter of operational efficiency. Even with effective employee training, the benefits can only be realized if teams are working from a consistent and reliable source of truth … DAM. Establishing this foundation is an investment that relies more on strategic time allocation than significant capital expenditure. To position itself for future growth, a company cannot afford to be complacent when evaluating potential technology investments. In a fast-moving digital landscape, organizations that delay improvements during slow periods risk falling behind. In contrast, companies that make deliberate investments—whether through new systems or by dedicating employee time to development and training—will be better prepared to seize emerging opportunities and showcase their competitive advantages as conditions improve.

This is a good time to invest in DAM.

Change is a Good Investment

Change is as present as it is pervasive. It is good to recognize, acknowledge and accept that change is happening in business, and to learn not only what that means for you and your team, but to be ready for those new opportunities. So, why do we change?

• We change to advance forward.
• We change to make ourselves stronger.
• We change to adapt to new situations.

Without change, there would be no improvements. If business is about growing, expanding and making things better for your customers, then what changes are you making? As many of us begin to see future recovery, I too look to the horizon and know that better days are ahead for us all. Whether you’re undertaking an improvement, an upgrade or modernization, whatever you call it, any such effort is holistic by design, encompassing all aspects of business. Many businesses have taken this time to focus on improving all aspects of their business that affect people, process, and technology. This is about good and positive access to information from many systems to not hinder but enable our work. Watch for signs and respond well. Improvement for all is a good thing. In business, we always aspire for stability but need to be prepared for the opposite. This is about both insurance, and investment. 

Invest in DAM

The demand to deliver successful and sustainable business outcomes with our DAM systems often collides with transitioning business models within marketing operations, creative services, IT, or the enterprise. You need to take a hard look at the marketing and business operations and technology consumption with an eye toward optimizing processes, reducing time to market for marketing materials, and improving consumer engagement and personalization with better data capture and analysis.

Time to Transform

To respond quickly to these expectations, we need DAM to work within an effective transformational business strategy that involves the enterprise. Whether you view digital transformation as technology, customer engagement, or marketing and sales, intelligent operations coordinate these efforts towards a unified goal. DAM is strengthened when working as part of an enterprise digital transformation strategy, which considers content management from multiple perspectives, including knowledge, rights and data. Using DAM effectively can deliver knowledge and measurable cost savings, deliver time to market gains, and deliver greater brand voice consistency — valuable and meaningful effects for your digital strategy foundation.

Future-Proof your Content

Consider the opportunity in effective metadata governance: do you have documented workflows for metadata maintenance? Are you future-proofing your evergreen content and data? Remember to listen to your users, to keep up to date and aware of your digital assets, and leverage good documentation, reporting, and analytics to help you learn, grow and be prepared. If you are not learning, you are not growing. If you are not measuring, then you are not questioning, and then you are truly not learning.

Conclusion

Keep the lights on. Now is the time to get smart and strategic with your money to ensure you can weather the current unpredictability and even come out ahead. Tariffs, recession fears, rising prices, and potential layoffs dominate headlines right now. As you look to the second half of the year, this might be causing you to take a close look at budget forecasts and reevaluate spending.

Play the long game. Marketing is a long-term strategy, and DAM is a cornerstone of Marketing efforts and operations. More than ever, there is a direct need for DAM to serve as a core application within the enterprise to manage these assets. The need for DAM remains strong and continues to support strategic organizational initiatives at all levels. DAM provides, more than ever, value in:

• Reducing Costs
• Generating new revenue opportunities
• Improving market or brand perception and competitiveness
• Reducing the cost of initiatives that consume DAM services

The decision to implement a DAM isn’t one to take lightly. It is a step in the right direction to gain operational and intellectual control of your digital assets. DAM is essential to growth as it is responsible for how the organization’s assets will be efficiently and effectively managed in its daily operations.

A DAMn good investment to me. 

Your DAM use cases are only as good as the humans involved

Building a digital asset management (DAM) program involves many decisions—from selecting a system and configuring interfaces, to architecting workflows. To set your DAM up for success, it is critical to involve your users from the beginning so you can develop and crystalize DAM use cases that will guide decision-making and ease change management.

A common mistake is to neglect taking the time to truly learn about the users, what they need from a system, and what motivates them. Without involving users, you may arrive at a seemingly logical and technically correct solution, but users may not see its relevance.

This risks the DAM program’s future viability. Users are likely to abandon a system that introduces stumbling blocks. Without involving users, you also risk focusing on the wrong problem or building solutions that don’t address their needs.

Invite your users to help you determine the right problem to solve and what adds value to their work. Put humans at the center of your DAM use cases.

From Trail System to Information System

On a recent sunny Saturday, I stood at a fork on a hiking trail staring at a map mounted on a prominent bulletin board. What stood out first to me were the broad lines in purple and green. But they were not the footpaths I was looking for. On a closer look, I saw the trails were marked in skinny, black dotted lines in a much smaller section of the map. The highlighted lines were in fact official borders of the wilderness area.

It occurred to me that this map was made from the perspective of the Forest Service. Standing at this juncture under the hot sun, where I had the dirt paths, tree groves, and running creek in front of me, I did not care where the watershed boundary ended or where the research area began. I was looking only for where the trail splits on the map so I could know whether to go left or right.

Now, I am not fit to argue how the National Forest Service should display its trail maps—I am no cartographer (maybe in an alternative life I dream about!)—but I am a user of trails. This gives me a perspective on what information is useful to communicate to an average trail user. When it comes to the design of the system’s interactions with users, this perspective becomes relevant.

Just as hikers are not the Forest Service, your users are not you: while you have a view of a whole system, users interact with a specific slice of it. And they have a keen awareness of what makes it work well for them.

An information system, such as a digital asset management system, is like a trail system.

If you are managing an enterprise-wide information system, you have a design problem to solve. At the center of a design problem are humans—groups of users and stakeholders.

Their work, their needs, and their minds are inconsistent, ever-changing, hardly linear, and sometimes contradictory. The system is meant to help various teams to do their work, in a way that not only helps the individuals but the collective as a whole. Involve them in the process of developing DAM use cases; learn their perspectives and programmatically incorporate their feedback. Don’t rely on your own assumptions. Don’t create your system implementation in a vacuum. 

What is human-centered design?

In the day-to-day work of managing a complex program and suite of technology, some problems grow amorphous. Things can feel messy. You are simultaneously supporting the teams who create content, those who contribute digital assets to the system, and those who need to quickly search and find items and the right information about them. There are stakeholders who want the system to save time, grow programs, provide accurate data, and apply governance and security policies.

Facing the enormity of these problems in a DAM program, human-centered design (HCD) provides a helpful framework. It is a concept increasingly applied in the design of intangible aspects of our world—digital spaces, services, interactions, and organizations.

Yet for systems like DAM—often used by staff internal to an organization—the practice is less commonly adopted. “Human-centered design” might sound like just a catchphrase, but it is defined by an ISO standard (ISO 9241-210:2019)! Officially, HCD is an “approach to systems design and development that aims to make interactive systems more usable by focusing on the use of the system and applying human factors/ergonomics and usability knowledge and techniques.” 

In simple terms, it is about involving humans in both the process and the outcomes of the designing of solutions, using their specific needs relevant to the defined problem to guide the solution-seeking.

Let’s look at how the concept of human-centered design can be applied in a digital asset management program. (Or, really, any program managing an information system.)

But first, why does human-centered design matter? 

Why engage users?

1. To validate the solution design

User feedback allows you to validate whether the enterprise technology meets the actual needs of its intended users.

2. To identify usability issues

User testing helps surface usability issues, bottlenecks, and pain points that might not be apparent during internal development and testing.

3. To reduce risk

Testing with actual users and gathering user feedback along the way allows for iterative improvement. This helps reduce the likelihood of costly setbacks after implementation and lack of trust among users.

4. To enable change management and improve user adoption

When users feel their feedback is valued and incorporated into the technology, they are more likely to adopt it enthusiastically and become advocates for its widespread use within the organization.

5. To facilitate continuous improvement and scalability

Regularly seeking user input allows the enterprise technology to stay relevant to evolving user needs and changing business requirements.

Applying human-centered design to solve common digital asset management problems

Here are some common problems organizations encounter with their digital asset management strategies, and how developing DAM use cases with human-centered design can help solve them: 

No central repository

Collection items, files, or content are in disparate places, organized in a way that makes sense to only a select few, and are artifacts of an evolving team.

To start, learn about the user’s scope of content and their mental model for organizing and searching digital assets. Determine whether a DAM or central repository is needed and viable for the organization. Further define what constitutes digital assets and who the users are in this context. Define the requirements of such a system in the form of user stories from the human’s perspective prior to shopping for technology products and making a selection decision.

“Where is that photo I’ve seen before?”

Users frequently cannot find the digital assets (or do so quickly) or have trouble navigating the site. 

To start, investigate what the root problem might be and what problem you want to solve. Learn from the users—through interviews, observations, and testing—what they are struggling with. Is this an issue with the layout of the interface? Or is this an issue with the metadata of the digital assets? 

Misuse or confusion on sharable content

The collection needs guardrails and governance to help users avoid mistakenly sharing or misusing content.

To start, define the problem to tackle. Gather information on current constraints such as workflow schedules. If the problem is preventative, programmatically plan out the appropriate access and labeling of content. Configure business logics that conform to user needs and DAM use cases. If the problem has to do with users’ understanding of the content, conduct user research to learn characteristics of the metadata attributes important to the users whose problem you aim to address.

Onboard more teams

The DAM system was originally launched with one team based on how they organize digital assets and campaigns; now it is time to onboard yet another team that creates a new type of assets. Each team has its unique ways of accessing and organizing assets and its own metadata requirements that govern its workflows.

To start, learn about the differences between various teams, how they organize their content, and the workflows they have for creation, ingest, and/or publishing. Extract user stories and generalize representative functional requirements. Use the requirements as benchmarks, not a checklist, for satisfying various user needs. 

Tips on considering users in DAM use cases

There are different ways to think about users in a DAM program. When you sit alongside users to learn about their day-to-day workflows and their stumbling blocks, you are zoomed in. You are borrowing your users’ lenses and viewing the problem through their perspectives. When you return to your desk and consider how a need can be met by the system’s capabilities, you take on a broad perspective. It is then important to make design decisions that are relevant to multiple groups, consistent across the system, and maintainable over time. 

Tip #1 You are not your users and stakeholders

Without building DAM use cases and user stories based on real humans, you run the risk of imagining solutions based on your and your team’s own assumptions and preferences. You end up designing a solution that makes sense according to your own (and let’s be honest, biased) perspective. What flows logically to you might become an obstacle to a different group. And you are left scratching your head wondering why users get so confused by a certain step.

Tip #2 Zoom out, and bring the alignment

Your solutions should be programmatically applied and create consistency. The idea is not to make a one-to-one replication of what one user or one group may say they want. Rather, focus on what they need to accomplish. If they want a button because they need to quickly press it every time to complete a repeating task, why not design a solution that batches the step and eliminates the repeating step?

A lot of times, users are too close to the system. For user testing and research to be effective, it is important to ask the right questions. Then, it is up to the researcher and the manager of a DAM program to bring the elements together in the full picture.

Tip #3 Investigate the problem

It is important to begin learning about the problem space by asking questions. Investigate the original problem that initiated this project. Almost always, you would need to investigate and redefine the problem.

Talking to users, you might learn that users are frustrated with the workflow, that the content team thinks of their work in categories contradictory to how they are arranged in the DAM, or that there is a technical flaw that causes access barriers. The first is a finding on someone’s attitude, the second a functional requirement, and the third a system oversight or bug. All of these factors contribute to the problem you are trying to solve.

Some of these ideas require further user research; some may not be true solutions but rather bandaids; some may take a much longer timeline or a bigger budget. There are constraints that every design must work within.

Carefully defined DAM use cases and user needs help determine which solution to pursue. Without taking the time to learn about the content team, how they interact with the digital asset management system, and how other teams search for the content they contributed, it won’t be clear what solution gets to the root of the problem.

Summary

A human-centered approach to managing your digital asset management program helps you ensure you are focusing on the right problem. It helps you build the DAM use cases, distilling the needs you aim to satisfy.

It helps reduce risks by involving users in an iterative process, gathering information, and creating a feedback loop. Involving users in your process also helps to build trust with stakeholders. Prepare users for the transition in DAM as the program grows, introduces new technologies, or onboard new teams. Finally, be sensitive to the human context. Exercise humility, and check your biases and assumptions.

Human-centered design at AVP

At AVP, we apply human-centered design to help solve a variety of information problems. Some examples:

• To guide how collections of massive textual data may implement AI-powered metadata enrichment processes in ways that are useful and ethical, AVP provided a prototype for structuring annotation crowdsourcing and involving various types of users in the process.
• To help program managers determine how technologies should be supported and prioritized, AVP conducted user research and delivered quantitative and qualitative data showing how successfully team members were using the myriad tools.
• An organization needed evidence to support a decision on the future development of a software application. AVP combined technical analysis with qualitative user research that considered human factors—such as technical proficiency and individual motivations—to bolster the recommended decision.

Preserving Digital Assets: A Gap in the DAM Marketplace

Cultural heritage organizations increasingly seek out a digital asset management system (DAM) that integrates robust digital preservation capabilities for preserving digital assets. They often recognize the importance of investing in digital preservation but struggle with the challenge of maintaining separate DAM and digital preservation systems due to limited resources.

While DAM systems typically prioritize security, permissions, and utilize cloud storage—all found in digital preservation systems as well—they still lack the comprehensive functionality that cultural heritage organizations and others consistently seek to help with preserving digital assets.

Despite the maturity of the DAM market, there remains a persistent gap between the preservation functionality that cultural heritage organizations desire and the systems currently available. 

At AVP, we have witnessed this shift in what organizations are seeking first-hand through our work assisting organizations in finding the perfect technology solutions to meet their unique requirements, from digital asset management and media asset management (MAM) to digital preservation systems and records management systems. 

In light of this issue, I would like to delve into the reasons behind this disparity and share AVP’s recommendations on how organizations can navigate the technical landscape for preserving digital assets effectively. Let’s explore the evolving needs of organizations and uncover strategies for achieving their goals within the realm of digital asset management and digital preservation.

Why can’t Digital Asset Management just “do Digital Preservation”?

It is crucial to grasp the fundamental differences between these two types of systems and their respective functionalities.

According to IBM, a DAM is “a comprehensive solution that streamlines the storage, organization, management, retrieval, and distribution of an organization’s digital assets.”

The lending library

To paint a visual picture, envision a DAM as a lending library.

Just like books neatly arranged on shelves, digital assets are meticulously organized, described, and managed within the DAM. Library users can navigate the catalog using various criteria such as subject, author, or date to locate specific assets, just as they can in the DAM. And, similar to needing a library card to borrow books, access to the DAM requires registered users to have appropriate permissions to access and utilize the digital assets.

Essentially, a well-managed DAM ensures that your digital assets are securely stored, easily searchable, and readily accessible. It functions as a virtual library, providing efficient organization and control over your organization’s valuable digital resources. 

The offsite storage

Building upon the library analogy, let’s delve into the unique characteristics of a digital preservation system.

Imagine the library books that are not frequently accessed. Instead of occupying valuable space on the main shelves, they are often relocated to a secure, climate-controlled warehouse. These books are packed in containers on tall shelving units, accessible to only a select few individuals. Browsing becomes nearly impossible, searching becomes challenging, and obtaining one of these books typically requires assistance from a librarian.

In the digital realm, a digital preservation system serves as the digital counterpart to this offsite storage. It replaces physical locked warehouses with secure user permissions, ensures file verification and fixity testing to maintain data integrity, employs packaging mechanisms called “bags,” and utilizes cold data storage for long-term preservation.

While a digital preservation system focuses primarily on safeguarding and preserving digital assets, it also prioritizes security and protection over immediate accessibility.

Same-same but different?

From these descriptions, it is evident that the fundamental purposes of DAM and digital preservation systems are significantly different, although there are areas of overlap. For instance, both the library and warehouse prioritize secure storage of their respective materials. (Ever walked out of a library without checking out your book only to set the alarm off?) 

Likewise, both DAM and digital preservation systems maintain strong user permissions to ensure security. Similarly, while libraries may employ climate control measures — albeit less stringent than those governing the warehouse’s temperature and humidity levels — some DAMs may also implement “lightweight” functionality for preserving digital assets, such as fixity testing upon upload.

This distinction emphasizes the intrinsically divergent purposes of DAM and digital preservation system. 

DAMs primarily excel in efficient asset management and user accessibility, allowing organizations to easily organize, retrieve, and distribute their digital assets. On the other hand, digital preservation system places paramount importance on long-term preservation and data integrity, safeguarding valuable assets for future generations. 

How can I use a DAM system for preserving digital assets today?

Increasingly, DAM vendors are adding digital preservation functionality to their systems. At a minimum, most DAM systems perform:

• Checksum hash values (e.g., MD5) creation on ingest
• Event logging (whenever an action is taken on a file)

Some DAM systems can also do the following:

• Virus checking on ingest
• Hybrid (tiered) storage (a combination of hot and cold storage or online, nearline, and offline storage)

Only a very small number of DAM systems may also:

• Make checksum values visible to users
• Test existing checksum values on ingest
• Enable manual and/or regular fixity testing
• Run reports on or export event logs

And at the time of writing, no DAM performs automated obsolescence monitoring of file formats (to our knowledge).

With this in mind, the question to consider is: what’s good enough when it comes to digital preservation functionality in DAMS?

“Good enough” digital preservation

The concept of “Good enough” digital preservation has been circulating since at least 2014, thanks to groups like Digital POWRR. Essentially, it recognizes that not everyone can achieve or maintain the highest levels of digital preservation, such those defined by level four of the NDSA Levels of Digital Preservation or full conformance with ISO 16363 (Audit and certification of trustworthy digital repositories), for all digital assets (for all eternity).

For many, these guidelines can feel overwhelming and unattainable. When organizations search for a DAM solution, they often have an expectation that it will solve all digital preservation planning challenges and result in a perfect A+ in digital preservation. However, as we have come to realize, this expectation is not in line with reality.

So, what should you do?

Let’s dive into some ideas on how we can tackle these issues.

Understand the difference between DAM system and Digital Preservation system functionality

First and foremost, organizations should focus on developing a clear understanding of the distinctions between a DAM and a digital preservation system. This knowledge forms the foundation for informed decision-making and empowers organizations to choose the right path.

Clarify your appetite for risk

Next, organizations need to assess their risk comfort levels. What functionalities are essential for their peace of mind? Are there specific data management or digital preservation regulations they must comply with? Can a DAM system meet these requirements effectively? If not, organizations must determine the functionalities that take precedence and decide whether a DAM or digital preservation system is more suitable for their needs.

DAM vendors play a crucial role in this process. It is essential for them to familiarize themselves with basic digital preservation software functionality. This understanding enables them to respond effectively to client requirements and deliver solutions that align with their specific needs.

Request standards compliance

DAM vendors should actively consider aligning with some guidelines from the NDSA Levels of Digital Preservation, for example. By doing so, vendors not only benefit clients with a need for digital preservation but also contribute to the long-term accessibility of assets within the DAM for all users. This alignment has the potential to promote industry-wide best practices and ensures the preservation and availability of digital assets beyond individual client needs.

However, it is essential to recognize that not all DAM systems need to encompass complete digital preservation functionality.

 The reality is, some organizations heavily invested in digital preservation may have a particularly low risk tolerance for loss and, despite DAM’s other capabilities, may choose not to depend on it alone to achieve their preservation objectives.

Choosing a solution for preserving digital assets

In light of these considerations, it is crucial for organizations to engage in internal discussions to determine their specific needs and priorities. These conversations should address risk levels and the functionalities that are essential for their peace of mind and compliance with their data management requirements. 

By having these dialogues, organizations can collectively define an acceptable level of preservation within the realm of DAM. Although reaching a consensus may present challenges, the goal is to find a comfortable middle ground that satisfies the needs of everyone in the organization. This process not only addresses their requirements effectively but also has the potential to drive innovation within the DAM industry as a whole.

If you are considering acquiring a DAM in the near future and have digital preservation requirements, we are excited to discuss the possibilities with you. AVP is here to assist you in exploring your options and finding the ideal system for your organization. We eagerly await the opportunity to assist you on this journey.