The Digital Signage Paradox

The digital signage industry is full of contradictions. On one hand we have extremely well informed multimedia and IT professionals who wish to leverage their skills using new technologies to reach out to their clients.

On the other hand we have less technical users like corporate executives, marketing professionals and administrative staff who also want to use digital signage to reach their respective audiences.

Both want to get to the same place but each has his or her means for getting there. This poses a big problem for digital signage solution providers. Their solutions need to be easy to use for the novice but at the same time they need features that appeal to a more technically advanced user.

Its not an easy task and the marketplace clearly demonstrates there are as many user interfaces as there are users. The key is matching the solution to the project while remembering who will be responsible for interacting with the application on a day-to-day basis.

It's normal for technical staff to be involved in the installation, configuration and deployment of a digital signage project. Having said that, you should also involve at the research stage some of the people who will ultimately be using and interacting with the application on a regular basis.

Chances are this won't be the technical staff who will be responsible for "babysitting" the equipment. This responsibility will surely fall on creative or administrative personnel and they must be able to get up to speed and become productive quickly. Your whole project may be in jeopardy if they don't understand the interface or if they can't work with it.

Remember that we all approach these projects with our own bias based on our background. For example, A/V professionals, Flash animation devellopers and graphic artists will all revert to the tools they know best. Most video and animation products are timeline based so digital signage solutions that have a similar interface will appeal to these users. Graphic artists are more familiar with layers so a "Photoshop" style interface will grab them. This logic also applies to marketing and administrative staff where PowerPoint is a familiar tool used by all.

It's up to each digital signage solution provider to come up with products that appeal to technical and non-technical users alike.

Failing to do so will relegate their products to a smaller share of the digital signage pie!