How do you build your signage content and decide what you are going to say?

Communications, a multichannel content provider in North America. “Will they be moving through the space, so they can only see the sign for a few seconds, or are they at rest, like in a waiting area or cafeteria?”

Once you’ve established dwell times, says Dolejsi, “You can gear your message accordingly. E.g., for transit, you have a smaller window of opportunity to reach those people, so the content message has to be simplistic, paced well — you end up with “glance TV.” People will notice and look up. You want to make sure that in that moment they get some nuggets of information, easily and digestibly presented. If it takes 30 seconds to get your message across, that’s not doing it well enough for that area. If you can break a 10-second message into points of three seconds each, you can achieve something.”

“Digital signage content usually has a short play time, so it must be a concise and pertinent message with a strong ‘call to action’ or to direct the viewer to an obvious Web page for more in depth information on the subject,” says Spencer Graham, manager of Operation of the West Virginia University Information Stations, which has over 100 digital signs, video walls and wayfinding deployments on three campuses.

But, cautions Dolejsi, “Even when you can expect longer dwell time, keep content dynamic. It’s tempting to run longer sessions of content, but remember, but unlike Web or TV, these are usually soundless, so you have to make sure the content can express its message. It has to be very visual in nature. You can’t really repurpose broadcast-style advertising, it doesn’t work.”

Know Your Audience

“You need to know what groups of patrons you want to reach,” says Kevin Prewett, head of Pro A/V and Digital Signage, Ingram Micro US. “The corollary applies — depending on your message intent, there will be different patrons you want to reach. You also need to decide whether you want to provide information, advertisements or both.”

Give Viewers a Reason to Look

“One tip from the world of retail that applies everywhere: you have to be giving something to the audience that they need,” says Dolejsi. “For example, in an educational environment, are

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