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Emerging technologies offer look into the future of interactive digital signage

How will interactive technologies change the face of digital signage going forward; and how are they already changing it today?

June 25, 2014

As digital signage continues to grow and become more popular its uses are also evolving. Engaging and empowering audiences through the use of interactivity has become a key differentiator for many organizations.

Digital signage software provider Omnivex Corp. and Digital Signage Today recently hosted a webinar, "Emerging Digital Signage Technologies - The Future of Interactivity," that took an in-depth look at the future of interactive technologies as they relate to digital signage.

The webinar was led by Omnivex CEO and Director of Software Development Doug Bannister, who took a survey approach to looking at newer and emerging interactivity technologies and how they'll affect or intersect with digital signage going forward.

The discussion ranged from touch and multitouch to gesture control to augmented reality to mobile and social media integration. "They all have their benefits," according to Bannister.

Starting with touch — and in this case, to be precise, single touch — it's already ubiquitous and people are generally familiar with it, Bannister said, driven in no small part by the rapid adoption of touchscreen-based smartphones.

Generally in retail, he said, he sees touchscreen-based digital signage as not as useful, because shoppers typically tend to already know generally what they want or what they're looking for when they come into a store. But for retail applications with a longer sales cycle, say a car sale, it might be more useful, he said.

Touching on multitouch, Bannister noted the Microsoft Surface multitouch table came out a month *before* the iPhone, but obviously has not seen a similar rate of adoption. Multitouch digital signage is probably most useful, he said, in use cases in which the deployer wants to brand themselves as "cutting edge."

"In my experience, the multitouch doesn’t yet give the same level of benefit that touch does," he said.

The same sentiment about appearing "cutting edge" also still applies to gesture-interactive digital signage, Bannister said, noting a retail mis-application in which it would have made more sense to just use touch technology.

One notable exception, and "the best example" of gesture control that he's come across, is using gesture-controlled digital signage in a hospital operating theater where doctors and nurses have already scrubbed in and literally cannot touch the screen without contaminating themselves.

"That's a fantastic use of the technology," he said.

Bannister also touched on "information control" interactivity, that is, using barcodes or RFID tags to change or access content on the screen.

Augmented reality was next up, and a useful way to begin trying to bridge the gap from screens to phones, Bannister said. He took participants quickly through an overview of a notable augmented reality/digital signage deployment done by Pepsi in London. Generally, though, AR is still a "newer technology looking for a home," he said.

Bannister then covered mobile connectivity, looking at QR codes, NFC, Bluetooth and iBeacons — most of which are still in their infancy as far as widespread adoption goes. The most adopted so far also is the one most disliked by many in the industry, QR codes, which are inelegant and unattractive, "but they work."

"How can we get people to be more interactive with our signs and our screens using the phones that they're carrying around all the time?" he asked.

Finally, the webinar took a run at social media interactivity with digital signage, such as Facebook or Twitter feeds on dynamic signage screens. Social media is popular and widespread, and many clients ask for it, but, Bannister admitted, he struggles with finding a beneficial, business-driven purpose and use case for putting social media feeds on the screen.

"Does it belong on large screens?" he asked. "That's something I don't have an answer for."

Following up on that, Bannister said, he cautions clients and potential end-users to remember that the requirements of the digital signage deployment should drive the technology and type of interactivity, if any, used in the deployment, and not the other way around. "And if that winds up leading you to the technology? Great!"

To watch the free, on-demand version of the webinar, click here.

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