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!

Power protection for kiosks

If you read my last post, I ranted about kiosks that are not working. Sometimes that is due to hardware failures, and sometimes those failures are not the fault of the hardware provider. Any time you have electronics plugged into A/C outlets there is a risk of lightening strikes, power surges, brown outs, and more commonly: dirty power. All of these electrical issues can cause hardware to fail, or act abnormally, or even cause the operating system or software to have "issues".





Now a customer who has deployed these kiosks in their retail store, or office building etc. has probably contracted with a software developer and a separate hardware provider. They may have even used another company for networking, installation or internet access. So there are a lot of people to point fingers at when things go wrong. Sometimes it is better to use a total kiosk integrator (see my company as an example) who can provide software, hardware, & installation so that the customer only has one butt to kick when things go awry. And that integrator will often know what element is causing the problem, and just fix it rather than start the finger pointing game. But a situation like "dirty power" or "line noise" can be hard to troubleshoot, and can make things happen that are unexplainable without a lot of investigation.





This is why it is often a prudent investment to use an A/C line conditioner to prevent this right up front no matter if you are the integrator or the customer that is buying the kiosk. A small investment (around $150-$175 per unit for a good one) will keep your kiosk from having downtime, possibly loosing data or at least loosing opportunities when a customer is ready to interact. That could be hundreds or thousands of dollars lost and your reputation tarnished. The small investment makes your total cost of ownership (TOC) lower because over the life of your kiosk deployment you will make fewer service calls out in the field, have fewer wasted hours trying to troubleshoot, and fewer wasted hours shooting emails back and forth trying to determine what went wrong. Thats hard to see up front when you are planning and budgeting for a deployment but I hope you will think of this now and save yourself, your partners and your customers a lot of grief.





We are, after all, talking about computer hardware / software in an public space, often un-manned or managed. There are enough ways for it to fail like vandalism or sabatoge, that you have a hard time fighting... why leave open a unprotected A/C line (which you can defend) and have that be the cause of failure? Also, if you are using a cabled ethernet connection, this is another source of danger as sometimes the surges come across the network or phone lines and not the A/C lines. Protect those points of entry too. I'm not talking about a simple power surge protector here, I'm talking about a quality line conditioner which will prevent line noise or dirty electric. And they will often have a surge protector built in as well.





As an example, our firm has a client who uses kiosks in a mobile marketing campaign for many large brands. They have non-IT savy staff members traveling all over north America setting up for consumer facing events. One day a field team calls and states that the kiosk has failed. Three quarters of the screen are black, and the software can be seen only on one quadrant. Well, there were lots of ideas why this would happen, such as high heat since it was outdoors in a parking lot under a tent. But the temperatures were well within tested temperatures and should not have cause it to fail. We had our onsite warranty team go and replace the unit. When the unit was tested later, it worked just fine, even outside in the sun. We later found that they were running the power to the computer kiosk from a generator. Generators are great mobile power sources but often produce dirty electric sinewaves. A line conditioner was the fix.





There are many available from companies such as tripp lite, APC, ESP and many more. We like the guys at ESP whose product is being integrated more and more in the kiosk industry. Often as an option by hardware fabricators. Their products are inside of many large NCR ATM machines, behind a lot of large corporate copiers and expensive electronics. This stuff works great, we even use it to protect our phone system. Our company sells these as an option for new kiosks and can provide them with leased or rented kiosks too. It just makes sense. Now they can be a bit big, so hiding them will take a few more inches than a surge protector, but its worth the protection and the uptime you will not ever think about. Peace of mind? Or prudent planning? As long as you protect your investment and your reputation, I think you're one smart kiosk integrator!