Rich Media Design

Rich media refers to a range of digital advertising technologies that use motion, interactivity, or both. But as the term suggests, rich means more.

Rich media solutions often draw on several web technologies like Flash, javascript and media players. What makes the process – and the end product – deserve its title is the almost limitless scope for originality and creativity. It's more than simply making something move. Rich media presents exciting opportunities for giving your users an engaging and inspiring online experience.

Export Gold Goldrider

Haka

Park Road

When to use rich media

Sometimes text and static images are just not enough to adequately convey your messages. Sound, action and interactivity offer enhanced new ways to tell stories.

The Haka feature Shift designed for Newzealand.com is a prime example. A conventional presentation using text and images could not have conveyed the electric energy unleashed during a haka.

The haka is all about movement and sound, so it was fitting that a web feature telling the story of the haka should be about that too. The site uses video, a voiceover by ex-All Black Robin Brooke and an interactive game to draw visitors in. Users don’t just read about Maori culture, they experience it.

Rich media opens up new ways of presenting information, without overloading people with large tracts of text. Shift designed an interactive video for Tourism New Zealand that lets users explore places and experiences shown in an ad originally designed for TV.

Users are placed in the pilot’s seat for a fly-over of some of the country’s most striking features. You control the journey, stopping off to find out about the things that appeal to you most.

Rich media is being put to good use in the area of interactive maps that allow users to zoom in and out. The maps on Newzealand.com allow users from overseas to explore New Zealand before they get here. The maps help people to plan driving routes and travel itineraries and make the traditional guide book look like a very primitive travel planning tool.

Rich media technologies

The term ‘rich media’ came about in the space where web design and advertising overlap. The technologies on their own aren’t inherently ‘rich’; it is their ability to provide new user experiences – which advertisers are constantly on the look-out for - that is the enriching aspect.

A complete rich media solution works best when several web applications are used. It is this integration that makes motion, interactivity and innovation possible.

The mainstays like Java and Flash animation have been around since the early days of the web. When you add newer tools like AJAX the really exciting stuff can happen.

Digital asset management

While the user interface gets most attention, it is also worth looking at what happens behind the scenes in a rich media solution. To present information in dynamic and interesting ways, data needs to be securely stored in a way that is both structured and flexible.

Shift has a methodical approach to managing digital assets that has proven its worth. The repository behind Newzealand.com has had assets added and changed over four years, allowing rich media elements of the site to be updated and integrated with new functionality over time.

All rich assets on the Tourism New Zealand sites are tagged with metadata, usage constraints, regional application and content keywords. This can be used to control the way content appears online. It is also used by content managers to find and use assets appropriately.

Shift’s rich media work

We’ve been working with rich media for a long time but it still occupies a special place for us. Like all good things there is potential for watering down the effect through overuse. Shift uses rich media selectively to engage and entertain users in ways that genuinely add something memorable to their experience.