Requirements and design space for interactive public displays

TLDR

Digital immersion is transforming public spaces—interactive screens in urban environments, malls, airports, and stadiums are replacing traditional displays to create new multimedia experiences and user interactions. The paper aims to provide a comprehensive guide for designers and developers by outlining the fundamentals and key design issues—attracting, engaging, and motivating users—for creating interactive public displays. The authors analyze the design space by categorizing interaction phases, identifying specific requirements, and developing a taxonomy of mental models and interaction modalities for interactive public displays. Their analysis and taxonomy are grounded in numerous research projects, art installations, and real‑world experiences.

Abstract

Digital immersion is moving into public space. Interactive screens and public displays are deployed in urban environments, malls, and shop windows. Inner city areas, airports, train stations and stadiums are experiencing a transformation from traditional to digital displays enabling new forms of multimedia presentation and new user experiences. Imagine a walkway with digital displays that allows a user to immerse herself in her favorite content while moving through public space. In this paper we discuss the fundamentals for creating exciting public displays and multimedia experiences enabling new forms of engagement with digital content. Interaction in public space and with public displays can be categorized in phases, each having specific requirements. Attracting, engaging and motivating the user are central design issues that are addressed in this paper. We provide a comprehensive analysis of the design space explaining mental models and interaction modalities and we conclude a taxonomy for interactive public display from this analysis. Our analysis and the taxonomy are grounded in a large number of research projects, art installations and experience. With our contribution we aim at providing a comprehensive guide for designers and developers of interactive multimedia on public displays.