Does the Public Still Look at Public Displays?

Abstract

Public displays are widely used for displaying information in public space, such as shopping centres. They are typically programmed to display advertisements or general information about the space in which they are situated. Due to recent advances in technology, public displays are becoming ubiquitous in space around cities and can potentially enable new interactions with public space. However, despite these advances, research reports that public displays are often found to be: (1) generally irrelevant to the space in which they are situated; and (2) ignored by passers-by. Although much research has focused on tackling these issues, a gap remains regarding knowledge about how public displays in the wild are currently being used at a time when people are increasingly relying on their smartphones as a main source for accessing information and for connecting with others. The study reported in this article aims to address this gap by presenting new insights about the current practices of non-research public displays and their role in a hyperconnected society. To achieve this, we provide results from a field observation study of non-research public displays and contextualise our findings within an analysis of related work. This article makes three main contributions: (1) identifying how user engagement with public displays has changed over the past 10 years; (2) understanding how the pervasiveness of smartphones and other connected devices has modified whether users notice public displays and their interactions with public displays; and (3) outlining design recommendations and opportunities towards making public displays more relevant in a hyperconnected society.

Predicting mid-air gestural interaction with public displays based on audience behaviour

“…It is worth noting that the average duration of interaction events is in line with data reported in other public display deployments [2]. Same considerations apply for the average number of interaction events per hour (0.615), which is in line with data reported for other indoor public display deployments [3]. There are infinitely many factors that might impact users' behaviour around displays.…”

“…Interactive public displays can today be found in airports, universities, shopping malls and more. Although it is generally known that users interact with public displays for very short amounts of time, interaction durations vary widely [1,2,3]. The same is true for interaction distances, particularly when using interaction techniques such as mid-air gestures [2,4].…”

"No powers, man!": A Student Perspective on Designing University Smart Building Interactions

“…In order to understand and inform future interaction design trajectories, a growing body of literature investigates perceptions towards speculative technology within a future context that does not yet exist. Various approaches are used to illustrate these technologies and future contexts for users, such as physical prototypes and simulation [34,38,45], videos [11], and animated sketches [48]. Ambiguity is an important resource [26] for such design processes in order to leave space for interpretation and for "critical and creative dialogue" [11].…”

“…A solution as simple as visualising and feeding back expected occupancy levels would to allow planning for a future 24-hour period. Situated public displays offer another mechanism for accessing this information, and could enable more complex forms of interaction and negotiation [35], though these should be carefully designed and positioned [45] to allow for meaningful engagement. In short, both the technologies deployed within a space, and the interactions and processes designed for them, must be spatially appropriate and account for the social context.…”

How the Arrangement of Content and Location Impact the Use of Multiple Distributed Public Displays

“…Consequently, relatively small displays that may disregard typical guidelines (e.g. about size and brightness [22]) could become even more granularly integrated in order to be appropriated into common routines.…”