What makes digital different and special?
A member of our team today was asked this question. In this post, we’ll break down the major highlights of how they answered this question.
Digital is special because:
It is a functional tool.
In today’s world, people use websites & apps to perform tasks. From seeking information to making decisions to being entertained to shopping, each of these are specific tasks of humans. No other medium allows you to do all of these things at one time. As such, unlike paper or telephone, the ability to interact with something and get an immediate response makes digital special and requires a different mentality to build success.
It is a functional tool.
In today’s world, people use websites & apps to perform tasks. From seeking information to making decisions to being entertained to shopping, each of these are specific tasks of humans. No other medium allows you to do all of these things at one time. As such, unlike paper or telephone, the ability to interact with something and get an immediate response makes digital special and requires a different mentality to build success.
It is not frozen in time.
You can update your messaging and logic on your site any time you want. This quality is due to the power of code, and its ability to change. It takes minutes to change pieces of code, but can take months to change large systems. A piece of paper, a phone call, or any real world artifact cannot be treated this way. And as such, you can change digital in response to your needs or market conditions.
It has multi-faceted navigation.
Many things in the real world must be navigated in a specific way. But digital can be navigated in almost any way you want. Why? Because we have different needs & information consumption habits. This is why a navigation bar in your site, your app, and from Google is so important. You don’t know if it’s the first or last thing your audience will see before they take the step to love or hate you. To make things easy for your audience, ensure that every page is easily findable, can be found in multiple ways, and supports the context your audience need to move forward. Great navigation, when invisible to you, is a sign that the site is using this aspect of digital well.
It is robust & malleable.
Digital has the ability to communicate data with data and data about data (called metadata). This information is invisible to most humans, but is critical for Google, the guts of computers, and those with disabilities who use assistive technologies to access the internet. This data is the basis of computer logic, which allows the computer to do new things based upon new inputs, creating an infinite set of possibilities. For example, this knowledge can help you communicate the same message to hundreds of people in meaningful ways to each person – and faster than you can do manually. And digital allows you to easily swap your language at the click of a button to reach an even larger audience. That’s something print and other media can’t do without clunky workarounds or large investments.
It is multidimensional.
Digital tasks can be done across multiple channels – mobile phone, web, desktop, text, voice, AI, augmented reality, virtual reality, TV, Internet of Things – which allows you to have enriched type of experiences and tasks that can be done. It also allows you to curate information and tasks to how your user accesses your product and also to that person. With one code base you can create powerful experiences to all of these different places. No other medium today can allow you to do that.
It contains infinite possibilities.
The world of digital is constantly evolving. New technologies are coming out each year, which means there’s an unlimited potential of what can be done for your business and for humanity. If you can dream it – for example helping people with a medical diagnosis, or teaching people how to play music – there’s a way for a computer to make something that will help you achieve that end.