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!

Greetings from the Digital Signage Expo

3M Rep shows rear projected kiosk
Originally uploaded by mauser_fan

Well I've spent the past two days exploring the Digital Signage Expo in Las Vegas. I was there initially for a meeting of the advisory board of the Digital Signage Association of which I sit on the board. The Expo was a very large show this year. It was double the size of past expos, as the digital signage industry grows by leaps and bounds.
There were many cool digital signage apps, but also many that could be considered kiosks in my mind. The photo here shows 3M's Vikuiti rear projection kiosk/signage application. A projector displays content onto a glass surface that has a special 3M coating. The image is projected through that material for viewing on the other side, and only on the surface of the coating, not the rest of the glass. The photo here also shows that a touchable menu can interact and change the content of the video being projected. Very cool retail application, and it could be used in many other solutions too. http://www.3mdigitalsignage.com/dse/ .

Other fun items seen at the show include the LongPen remote book signing tool that is being used by Borders Books. Created by author Margaret Atwood, the video conferencing solution is combined with a remote controlled pen, allowing an author in a remote location to talk to the consumer and sign a book for them! Very impressive and fun. Think of the saved travel time and expense for the authors. They could do multiple book signings each week and never leave their office. http://www.longpen.com/



All in all, the show was a big success. Our company, Electronic Art was in attendance and was there to cement some relationships with Cisco systems who has a robust digital signage network system, of which Electronic Art will become a VAR and content management / provider partner. Also, we evaluated using NetKey as a digital signage management tool as well as Kiosk OS system.

I'm still in Vegas at the moment, working at Starbucks before flying home tomorrow, so I'll try to post more entries from this show in the next week. So many to talk about!

Did you attend the show? If so, comment below on your favorite booths and products.

Tis the season to plan your next kiosk project

Well, it has been a busy December. Our firm has been cranking out proposals for kiosks and digital signage like mad men! This is the time of year when many corporations need to either spend money by the end of the year, or they are taking the slow time at the holidays to start planning initiatives for 2008. Often, the planning and fact finding is done at this time of year, to prepare for budgeting season that is often in the March time frame. Budgeting is proposed internally, and then approved by the end of the corporate calendar year which is often June. That money is then part of the following corporate calendar year's budget. Development on these projects may not start in earnest until the summer or fall of next year.

This is an annual exercise for firms like Electronic Art and my competitors. We are all cranking out proposals, responding to RFP's, and letting everything else get pushed back while we attempt to land this new business. It can be frustrating, but this is when many projects are born, and this groundwork can make it possible to land that project in the late spring. There is often a long sales cycle in regards to these projects. It can be frustrating for the "new business development" staff, but accepted.

If you are looking for firms to bid on a kiosk or digital signage project, take a look at your needs. Think about what "pain" you are trying to solve, and do a good job of outlining what you want from the vendor. If what you need is an off the shelf solution, start comparing apples to apples. If your needs are custom or you want it custom built so you "own it" and don't have to pay licensing... outline the project well, and find vendors who will be consultative in their approach. Often a good vendor can suggest good features for your project that you may have overlooked, and raise concerns about feasibility and cost (do you REALLY have a Google budget to build this??) and tell you how they can save you money, or implement tools to speed up time to deliver.

For example, we once had a client with a small budget that needed a content management tool to manage the kiosk. We could have built him one if he had budget, but he needed to spend much of his budget on hardware, design, and video production. So we suggested the use of a free third party tool to allow him to manage textual content, in this case it was a calendar of events. This allowed him to spend his money where he really needed it. Now we also had to explain the dangers, which include that vendor going out of business, etc. But the risk was low since the third party vendor was Google. We integrated the Google tool within a day and had that portion of the project out of the way.

At the same time, realize that your kiosk vendor has to be careful not to give you a full project description for free that you can shop around to his competitors. So often a consultative approach may lead to a consultation fee to cover the cost of R&D, Project specifications creation, flow charts, wireframes, etc. If you don't have this work already done, then expect to pay for it. In the end, you'll have all you need to get the funding, or have a clearly defined project, so you and your vendor know what is being built.

Some prospects come to us with clear specifications for their project, so we can give clear pricing. Others are vaguely written, or don't have enough information to accurately price but still want a price by next week. So those proposals are often written with price ranges such as "between $50K - $75K depending on complexity". If the client cannot define how complex it will be, what features it will have, and what level of integration is needed... how can I know what it will cost me to build it? As a solution provider, I have to be fair to the client and my company.

A kiosk solution provider should listen to your needs, and be consultative in their approach. Sometimes it is not about selling you the biggest project they can, but rather selling you the right project for your budget or what is right for the project. But make sure you are being fair to them and giving them what they need to help you. Like Jerry Maguire said to Rod Tidwell in the movie "Jerry Maguire" - - "Help me... help you".