Digital Signage - When things go wrong

One of the reasons I bought and love my BlackBerry curve is that it has a camera built into it. I had been a BlackBerry user for 7+ years but used to carry a separate camera with me. Convergence is a great thing, because now I have one device to carry with me and it lets me capture pictures of kiosks and digital signage around town. I often see interesting deployments, good and bad interfaces and my favorite: systems that just don't work. I know there are entire web sites devoted to posting images of digital signage in very public places like Times Square that have stopped working. I'll just dedicate this blog entry instead of an entire site.


Yes, things go wrong. Computers stop working, and there are no systems that are 100%, no matter what the vendor tells you. But you can do a lot to keep the uptime to about 99% of the time with careful planning, quality software and best practices. Too often networks are thrown together quickly with the cheapest options. It's true that digital signage networks can be very expensive. Often starting at $20K just for management and server software, and you still need hardware and content. Most corporations can expect to budget around $100K annually for a good size deployment with continually updated content. So you can see why the smaller guys (and not so small) scrimp where they can. And often it ends up in a black eye for the brand or a system so poor that it eventually gets removed.


Here is an example of a digital signage network in the Cincinnati airport (CVG) near baggage claim. I've yet to see this working correctly. In this photo you can see the cursor over a mostly blank screen. It was trying to use a browser to pull in Artimis traffic cameras, so you would be able to avoid traffic jams. I think these guys should test before they publish, what do you think? Does this instill confidence in the product, the provider, the service? No. I imagine once it was running, you'd quickly forget all of that, but as I mentioned, I don't think it's ever worked when I've been there.


Here is the same sign panel a month ago as I traveled back from the digital signage expo in Philadelphia. This time it had new printed signs around the screen (they looked nice) yet the player was not receiving a signal and didn't have a default set of content to play in case this happened. So the guest walking by just saw a blue screen with the message: "¿No hay señal " which loosely translates to "I can't get a signal". Sounds like the computer wasn't happy either, it was feeling blue.

I saw the same unit two weeks ago upon returning from KioskCom, and it was simply turned off. That is all too common, unnecessary and unprofessional.

Notice the large enclosure they built just to hold a trackball (and perhaps the PC) that allows visitors to interact with the tools. An all in one touch screen would have been much cleaner and probably only slightly more expensive. In the long run, you would have fewer components to manage and install as well as a better user experience. I should also state that using web pages as content on digital signage is usually not a good idea. It is similar to someone not familiar with the web trying to make the web page act like print media. They just don't get that this is a different media with a different audience and purpose, as well as constraints.


While you can repurpose elements from the web like embedding video files, flash files and images from a web site, don't simply put the web site HTML into the sign and call it a day. The web was not built for this audience, the links and fonts are too small (especially for touch screens) and you have issues of connectivity. Instead, take those existing assets and embed them into a design specific to digital signage and public computing experience (versus sitting at a desk or a couch with a laptop).


Just because your are a big corporation, don't expect that you are immune to these same issues. Charles Schwab has digital signage in their windows in this Manhattan location. And one evening as I strolled by their home grown application had thrown an error. The application named SchwabTV2.exe experienced an application error. Since they didn't use a management tool that handles these issues and prevents the errors from displaying, this is what their brand presented to me. I expect that they would manage my money the same way, and let's just say I won't be using their services any time soon.

So talk to your vendor, choose good management tools such as Scala, Cisco, NetKey, Broadsign, DT Research or one of the many other quality tools. Have the vendor assist you in setting up quality hardware with contingencies for problems similar to these, such as connectivity, application errors, hardware uptime. Many of these issues are handled with best practices from the IT community (running your app as a service that can be auto restarted, hardening your operating system, etc.). And paying for the remote monitoring service that allows technicians to be emailed or sms texted when a sign has problems so they can remedy the issue immediately. Save some budget for ongoing maintenance and monitoring, don't blow it all on the initial install. Don't scrimp on consumer grade electronics, use commercial grade hardware that was meant for continual usage and come with great warranties.

Have you seen digital signage systems or kiosks fail like this? Take some pictures when you do with your camera phone and send them to me along with a description and I'll share them here. You can also share your comments below using the comment links. It's easy!