Tales from the Dark Side — Horror in the Digital Signage World.
With Halloween almost upon us I have decided to do a feature on some of the scariest examples of digital signage. This blog aims to highlight some of the most grisly issues, creepiest content and spookiest faux pas of the digital signage variety, as well as provide some thought provoking precautions you can take in order to keep those devilish demons at bay. Have fun spotting the film titles (with slight amendments) of some the greatest horror films ever made.
28 Days Later.
There is nothing worse than displays showing promotional offers that have expired, a breakfast menu at 5pm or a once trending video that no longer has any relevance to its audience. With an Acquire CMS content can be scheduled allowing pages and playlists to appear at different times of the day. Advanced scheduling also means that content can be planned months and even years in advance. So you can avoid the wrong content making a disturbing appearance!
The Bezel Width Project.
This is an avoidable incident seen all too often with video walls — video walls constructed from screens with a wide bezel width. The result? Stretched videos with portions of hidden content, content that doesn’t align properly or content that is repeated across the bezel gap, creating 3 eyed monsters in some cases. We suggest using the innovative Video Wall Apps from Acquire Digital to achieve high definition and accurate synchronisation of playback across any format screens. Find out more.
Paranormal Textivity.
Understand and embrace the medium of digital signage. It is a visual medium, one that requires a good mix of visuals, films, feeds and eye-catching animated content. Do not therefore, include too much text! Your audience won’t stick around to read it and it’s unlikely that it will make an impact or grab attention.
Invasion of the Keyboard Snatchers.
This is not an urban myth… In the past we have witnessed applications running on kiosks and touchscreens that encourage users to give feedback or register for something. Sounds great, until you realise that there is no physical keyboard to input information and no on-screen keyboard designed with the interface which should appear on demand when a type box is clicked on by the user. Spooky!
A Nightmare on Touch Screens.
If you’ve created a touch screen project make sure that it is fully tested before you go ahead with deployment. Check that the navigation works, that pages link correctly and most importantly, that it has been calibrated accurately. There is nothing more frustrating than a touch screen project that requires you to touch off centre or select options that appear slightly off screen. Perception makes creating multi-touch projects easy.
Textless chainsaw massacre.
Digital Signage is normally installed to promote, attract and entice audiences. So, we regard it as a complete blunder if you include text that is too small to read from a reasonable distance. Better still, use graphics to illustrate your point and ensure that content is design-led, eye catching and memorable.
Don’t Look Now… the internet connection is down.
There is a danger when using software that relies on having an internet connection to stream content. Be prepared for inevitable periods of downtime when the internet connection is lost. Alternatively you may wish to consider using a solution like Acquire which deploys or uploads the project directly onto the player machines. Acquire also contains caching mechanisms for those apps that do require an internet connection and will periodically cache data such as TV streamed content, Tweets and RSS feeds so that you are never left with an ugly blank space.
Screen of the dead.
How affective is your digital investment if you have episodes of locked up, frozen or crashed screens? Not very! Invest in a secure and reliable remote management tool set such as System Monitor by Acquire Digital to identify and resolve issues remotely from a central office location to minimise downtime.
From Dusk till Dawn.
If your screens or kiosks are used in a reception area, shop or other public place with restricted opening hours it is unlikely that your screens will be viewed between the ghostly hours of dusk till dawn. Avoid wasting electricity and consider investing in software with Power Management capabilities. The Acquire Power Manager App allows you to remotely power off and on again at specified times which will increase the longevity of your machines.
Blogged by Sarah Miles.
Originally published at acquiredigital.com.
