EPISODE 153 | Guest: Jill Perardi, senior director of professional services for Visix
Info kiosks let you put a wealth of information on a single screen, allowing users to search and explore on their own terms – enhancing both convenience and engagement. Plus, they can help organizations make a big impact without a big budget.
In this episode, we discuss the versatility of these tools across industries, from guiding visitors to engaging customers to celebrating achievements, and how interactive design elevates the user experience. Listen for some inspiration and get tips on how to plan and launch your own info boards:
- Understand what an info kiosk is – the content versus the equipment
- Discover the benefits of touchscreen info kiosks for various industries
- Hear real-world use case examples of info kiosks and hall of fame boards
- Learn best practices to plan and collate content for your project
- Get some basic design and content tips for better audience engagement
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Transcript
Derek DeWitt: Digital signage has certainly moved on since its early days. And there are lots and lots of different things now that sort of fall under the category of digital signage. A couple of the less common but very interesting uses of digital signage is in the use of hall of fame boards and information kiosks, which very often are interactive.
I know we’ve sort of touched upon these a little bit in the past, but we’re going to go a little bit more in depth this time round as I speak with Jill Perardi, she is the senior director of professional services for Visix. Hi, Jill.
Jill Perardi: Hey, Derek.
Derek DeWitt: You ready to talk info kiosks and hall of fame boards?
Jill Perardi: I am. I’m excited!
Derek DeWitt: Me, too. I’d like to thank Jill for talking to me and of course everybody out there for listening to this episode of Digital Signage Done Right. Don’t forget that you can’t subscribe (he says again), and you can follow along with a transcript on the Visix website.
All right, so let’s start off with info kiosks, which is a particular use case of, very often, interactive sort of projects. When we’re talking about this, what do we mean info kiosk? What is that?
Jill Perardi: Well, it’s kind of a catchall that people use for any interactive screen where you’re able to find information. So, think about a retail application that I’m sure everybody has seen – you’ve walked into a shopping center or a mall outdoor shopping district, and you’re wanting to find a particular vendor or what women’s clothing stores are there, and you go up to the screen and you touch it and interact with it. It might be at a fast food restaurant; you’re ordering from a screen.
In a more higher ed or corporate environment, organizational type of environment, it could be anything from wayfinding, directory boards, donor boards, you know, all the things that we’ve spoken about in the past on this podcast.
Derek DeWitt: So, the information or info part of that is, I mean, it could be honestly anything.
Jill Perardi: Pretty much. Yep. And the kiosk part of it is really the structure itself, but the touchscreen inside of that structure. And so, it kind of gets put together as an info kiosk, and it has many different use cases and many different markets.
Derek, when you think of info kiosk, what do you think of? Because I just gave a couple of examples where I use it in different places, but when’s the last time you used one? What catches your eye?
Derek DeWitt: Because I always think of it as, you know, it’s like a box. It’s like a stand, a rectangular stand with an angled top and an interactive screen on the top of it, and you use it for whatever purposes.
I’d say probably the last time I used maybe at the cinema, you know, instead of standing in the queue while everybody fumbles around trying to find a credit card that works or cash or whatever, you can actually just go up in some cinemas here and just tap through. And then there’s a little printer and it prints out your ticket and you never have to speak to another human being, which, you know, if you’re misanthropic, and sometimes I get in that mood and that frame of mind, it’s a big benefit.
Jill Perardi: Exactly.
Derek DeWitt: I don’t wanna talk to you. I just wanna see my movie.
Jill Perardi: Introverts are so excited for info kiosks.
Derek DeWitt: Well, actually, yeah, seriously. Right. Not just introverts, but also, let’s say you’re not a native or proficient speaker of the language or, you know, there are a lot of types of people out there who, for whatever reason would find interacting with some kind of a screen more pleasurable, more efficient than dealing with another person.
Jill Perardi: You know, that’s a really good point. Especially not the native language part of it, because the benefit of a kiosk like that is that it can be self-service, but also if it’s designed properly, you can choose your language. If I were at the cinema in the Czech Republic, I do not speak Czech. And so, if I could walk up to a kiosk and push a button that says English…
Derek DeWitt: Yeah, you just tap that little British flag icon and, bam, it’s in English.
Jill Perardi: Right. Exactly. So, that’s one great benefit of having something like an info kiosk.
Derek DeWitt: Sure. Absolutely. So that’s obviously, that’s a huge benefit. What are some other benefits?
Jill Perardi: Well, I like to think of the interactive part of it, the content design part of it, because it is interactive. More screen real estate means the more information you can share.
Now you wanna think about how it’s designed. It needs to be designed well, so you have the least amount of touches, you know, on the screen as possible to get people to what they want to learn or read or do on the screen. But, you know, there’s really more you can explore. There’s an opportunity for more engagement than there would be on a static screen, you know, whether that be, you know, a digital display or a print directory, for example.
Derek DeWitt: Yeah, that’s very true. I know I mentioned it on this podcast many, many, many episodes ago, but some years ago, Deb and I were in the city of Manchester in England, and at the library there, the main library, they had this amazing interactive digital signage that had, you know, not just the catalog of all the books that they had available, with really quite a bit of information about the book (you know, what people have said about it, if it’s an important book or not an important book, obviously where it is in the library and how to get there, you know, if it’s a first edition and so on) but also just an amazing amount of information arranged in a very attractive, almost playful way about the library itself, about the city.
We just popped in there because it was raining, and we found ourselves sort of captivated by this thing. And I think we probably spent an hour and a half in there just hanging out in the lobby of the Manchester Library, learning about the city until the rain let up enough for us to go hit the pub. You know, and it was just, it was….Talk about engagement. We were absolutely engaged, and we literally just went over to it, ’cause we were bored.
Jill Perardi: Yeah, and that is such a great example of an info kiosk right there, because it’s not just like wayfinding or a directory, like I mentioned, in, you know, a retail environment or purchasing a ticket to a movie. That is truly informational. And what it did was get you excited about, in that case, the library or the city of Manchester.
But, you know, I’m thinking back on one of the projects that I’ve worked on, that our group has worked on, recently, and it is informational about key alumni. And it’s not just pulling up the name and hey, who graduated here and in what was their major, and in what year? It gives a lot of information about different groups in the university, ways that they continue to work with the university, where a lot of these individuals are living now.
So, if you’re a prospective student, for example, and really the parent can get excited going, wow, this is such a great university. Look at where everybody’s ended up. Look at what they’re doing, how successful they are, or, you know, how they’re helping the world, you know, whatever it might be that they had on that kiosk.
So, it’s a lot of content in that kiosk, to be honest. There’s a lot of videos, there’s a lot of photos, a lot of just information in it, but it’s so interactive and fun, too. And they really did a great job of making sure things like artwork were fun and useful and wanted to keep people hooked and captivated. Just like your Manchester example.
Derek DeWitt: Right, exactly. And like you said, a lot of these are utilitarian, they’re sort of like single purpose, you know, like, oh, this is a menu board or menu kiosk. And obviously, it’s designed to help people, you know, navigate through the food items and place their orders and find out if, you know, if they’re allergic to peanuts, if it has peanuts and so on. But when you get these wider scope ones like this, it really expands the whole idea.
‘Cause here’s the thing, if you wanted to use it for just the one purpose, in a library, let’s say, where’s this book? Or where’s this kind of a book? And do they have a copy? And can I go grab it before I take the time to traipse all the way into the stacks? But by having all this other stuff, like you said, you can do so much more with these interactive projects that there’s just so much available that, yeah, if people wanna spend time there enjoying themselves, basically learning about a bunch of stuff and, you know, their environment and the context that they find themselves in, that’s also there. So it’s really multipurpose. It can be targeted, but it can also be a bit more.
Jill Perardi: Yeah. And another project that comes to mind, Derek, there was a university, also a university case in a tourist town, and there was a Barnes & Noble in the middle of this tourist town, and people would see university gear in the window or see that it was also a campus bookstore. And they were walking into this Barnes & Noble and going up to the cashiers and saying, what is this university you have here? They didn’t even know. And this was a historic university, absolutely gorgeous, but they’re in this town for tourist reasons, they had no idea this was there.
So, they ended up putting an info kiosk in the entryway of this Barnes & Noble that talked about the history of the college, and, you know, the architecture. It had a campus map on it, talked about athletics and different educational programs. So, it was a way to inform these tourists about, you know, what was really around them, what some of these buildings were around them that they had no idea. They thought it was just another old historic building and had no idea.
Derek DeWitt: That’s really interesting. That never even occurred to me. Of course, an organization doesn’t necessarily have to put these things only on their own property. Like, they could put it wherever. You could have it, the main square, you know, like, yeah, we’re the biggest employer in town, here’s who we are, you know?
Jill Perardi: Right, exactly.
Derek DeWitt: Okay. So, let’s say I’m an organization, a school library, a company, whatever, and I want to do something like this, whether it’s on our own premises or elsewhere in the vicinity, to draw people in. Obviously Visix can help with that sort of thing, but I would need to do some information gathering on my side of the situation before approaching Visix, and how would I get even get started with something like that?
Jill Perardi: Yeah, sure. So, the first thing you wanna think about is, what content do you even wanna show? What information is going on this info kiosk? Is it book stacks and information about the building you’re in and the city? Is it information about donors and alumni? You know, what are you even putting on this display? So, think about your content first. So, think about the topics that you wanna cover first and foremost.
Then you need to think about if there’s going to be a lot of text or copy on the screen, which I don’t always recommend, but sometimes it is necessary for these types of kiosks. What is it going to say? Or if it’s going to be in the historical college in the historical town I mentioned, they had a campus map, but not every building was interactive because not every building was something that a tourist would stumble upon or had historical merit. But the ones that did were interactive. So, which buildings do you want to call out in that case, and what do you wanna say about them? What do you wanna show about them? Are you going to include photos, videos? Do we already have those? Do we need to hire someone to come out and take those for us?
You know, what do we need to do to start bringing this content together? Even though we’re not gonna be the ones, you know, the client isn’t going to be the one to design and develop it, they still need to think about what they want to show and what they need to do to gather that information. And then Visix will take it from there and bring their ideas to life in an interactive way.
Derek DeWitt: Right. But Visix is not gonna be writing the copy for them, or taking the pictures or, you know, sourcing, you know, 50-year-old videos.
Jill Perardi: More than likely not just because we don’t know your organization as well as you do with the information that you’re presenting. Of course, we have helped clients in the past if, you know, they’re like, we don’t even know where to start. Well, let us take a look and see if we can find a camera crew or, you know, whatever needs to be done to film in that case, you know? We can help with that. But yeah, most instances though, the clients tend to have their own information already or wanna use their own photographers or, you know, local photographers or copywriters or whatever to help put that together.
Derek DeWitt: Sure, sure. And I also think it’s interesting, like you said, with the university kiosk at the Barnes & Noble in town, they knew who their audience was. They’re not students, they’re not staff, they’re not faculty. They’re potential students or potential people who are interested in associating in some way, shape or form with their organization and their institution. And so, yeah, they don’t make everything interactive because, like you said, they knew who their audience was. And you know, we say this all the time, that’s the first and foremost. You gotta know what you wanna say, and in order to know what you want to say, you kind of need to know who you wanna say it to and for what purpose.
Jill Perardi: Yeah, you’re absolutely right. And that’s really where I should have started when I said what you needed to gather, thinking about your content is know your audience. Who is going to be using this and why?
Derek DeWitt: Or at least make a good guess at it. You know, take a run at it, and don’t… and the answer shouldn’t be “everybody”. Because think about that. Everybody. That’s a lot of people. And there are groups out there to which you are irrelevant.
Jill Perardi: Right.
Derek DeWitt: You know? So, an organization or a facility says, okay, an info kiosk sounds pretty good. And I know that, as you’ve mentioned, some of them get used or requested or what have you, so often they almost become like their own categories. Like we were saying, a hall of fame board could be an athletics thing. That’s the first thing I think of when I think of hall of fame. But then alumni or other things as well, like, there are lots of different things. And as more and more people start to request this or say, this is what I want in my place, I would imagine they start to become sort of little subcategories all by themselves.
Jill Perardi: You’re exactly right. That’s absolutely what happens. Years ago, donor boards were unique. They were kind of new. Oh, well, let’s, you know, I need to replace this wall of plaques, or, I don’t have any more room, so let’s see if I can make this a digital thing. And so now, “donor boards” are a term that people know, and people ask for in that way. The same thing’s happening now with hall of fame boards, hall of fame projects.
And so it might be the need, like, hey, we have so many great athletes that have passed through this university, or we have so many accomplished scientists at this organization, you know, maybe they’ve won Nobel Prizes, or you know, something like that, that we want to consider them a hall of fame in some way, and we want to include their information. We don’t wanna put just a plaque on the wall with somebody’s name and their accomplishment. We want people to come in here, see that, but then learn more about this person. You know, maybe watch a video about their work or, you know, maybe it’s somebody invented a ton of patents, and you wanna see their patent drawings. And you know, you can use this informational kiosk to drill down and see all of that information. So, hall of fame is really becoming one of those projects that’s going from generic to their own category right now.
Derek DeWitt: Hmm. That’s pretty cool. And so, like we mentioned sports, obviously, you know, alumni obviously. What else? Like, I mean, student clubs? I don’t know. I mean, I haven’t set foot on a university campus in years, so I don’t even know what. What else would you use it for?
Jill Perardi: Sure. You know, we have had some corporate groups that wanna use it for what I just mentioned, you know, patents that they’ve received or the people that have worked there along the way. But it is mostly popular in K-12 and higher ed. In the K-12 world, it is to include athletic accomplishments, you know, state championships, that sort of thing. Or maybe people that have gone on to play in college or the professional level. It’s very popular to list past valedictorians, ludatorians, national honor students and their accomplishments.
Derek DeWitt: Spelling bee winners.
Jill Perardi: Sure, sure. You could do that. You know. And then the higher ed level, again, it comes up mostly in athletics, but there’s also a lot in the alumni. So, how many people have graced these halls and have become nurses and, you know, because of our organization and what are they doing now? Where have they gone on to do their work? And, you know, we wanna highlight these people that are involved in Doctors Without Borders or, you know, whatever it might be. And those all become hall of fame boards. It’s not just athletics.
Derek DeWitt: I spend a weird amount of time on architecture websites, ’cause I really like architecture, and you know, they’re always showing these are our past projects, these are our current projects, these are some proposals that we’ve submitted, you know, they’re putting out a tender, we hope to get it. And so, you can kind of see that design. Here’s our design aesthetic, here’s what we do, here’s the kind of materials we use, here’s our philosophy, you know, and all this before you even talk to anybody. If I’m looking for an architect before I even talk to anybody, I could just check out this, let’s call it a hall of fame board, a project board and see what these guys are all about before I even waste anybody’s time having a conversation.
Jill Perardi: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, if you take that into the higher ed or the corporate world, do I wanna be a part of this organization? That’s kind of the audience for these, right? It’s promoting yourself and how great of an organization you are and how many great people you have churned out with amazing accomplishments, whether, you know, that be a valedictorian in a high school graduating class, a spelling bee winner, you know, prized basketball player, you know, whatever that is. And to be able to say, hey, look at us, and we wanna promote us and how great we are.
Derek DeWitt: Yeah, it’s nice. It’s the, I don’t know what, it would be the opposite of guilt by association. Like awesomeness by association.
Jill Perardi: Right, exactly. Join us, and you will be awesome, too.
Derek DeWitt: Yes. Oh, come on. Go hop on board, man. We’re going places. We’ve got a track record. But that’s true. Especially when it comes to a place I might wanna work or a place I might wanna study or I want my kid to study at. Yeah. Track record does matter.
Jill Perardi: Right? It does. And so, show that digitally on your info kiosk, let people learn as much as they can and then want to know more and start asking you questions from there and you can hook them in. You’ve already kind of sold them with your info kiosk on how great you are. Now you can just kind of finish it and get them on board to join you in some way.
Derek DeWitt: Again, talking about higher ed specifically, though, again, hospitals and things like this also come to mind, you know, so you might have a donor board, and then over here you might have this kind of hall of fame board or whatever we’re gonna call it. Do people ever, sometimes maybe they just don’t have the space for multiple screens in that particular environment. Do they ever combine different kinds of boards, let’s call them that, on one display?
Jill Perardi: Absolutely, all the time. That very first project I mentioned when we first started talking today, it was a combination of hall of fame and donor board. So, it combined the two. And then, you know, if you wanted to also have some traditional digital signage, let’s say, that’s promoting some upcoming events, you know, you can get more bang for your buck out of these informational kiosk by combining these things. We just wanna make sure when we do that, that we make it easy in the design.
Like I mentioned earlier, the fewer amount of clicks to get to the information that you want people to read or watch is best. So, we don’t wanna cloud the design and take away the whole point of this. So, we just need to be careful on that from a design perspective. And, you know, don’t start combining things just to get more bang for your buck. Let’s make it worthwhile.
And so, we will talk through that with you when we start the project. I mean, even as far back as scoping the project. Why do you wanna include multiple things on one screen? Is it truly a space issue? All right, cool. We need to design so people can easily see the section that they want to find instead of having to go through all these donors when they’re really looking for the hall of fame information or vice versa.
Derek DeWitt: Right. You want to be able to toggle between the two.
Jill Perardi: People combine it all the time. We just have to be strategic about it.
Derek DeWitt: And I think design, obviously, is key to all of that. Because like you said, I think it’s absolutely important that the fewest number of clicks to get where I need to get to, and how easy is it for me to go back and things like this. ‘Cause I’ve used interactive touchscreen projects in the past myself, and sometimes they’re really great and sometimes they’re really not so great. And the really not so great ones, I kind of feel like, why’d you bother? Because I’m not getting what I want, so I’m gonna have to go talk to somebody anyway. So, you know, why did you, did no one test this? You know, like, what are you guys doing here?
And the flip side of that is a really well designed one that feels intuitive, it’s a genuine pleasure to use. Like, it actually adds more than just the information it has. There’s like another sort of level of like, yeah, these guys got it going on, you know? Like, they really, they know what they’re doing. It just kinda adds more cachet to the whole enterprise.
Jill Perardi: Yeah, it absolutely does. It can truly make your organization look better.
Derek DeWitt: Yeah. Right. So honestly, there’s no limit to what you can do now with digital signage, especially when you’re getting into the interactive realm. And you’re doing things like info kiosk and hall of fame boards and all of these other ways that people are thinking up to utilize this technology, the underlying tech and the underlying software and the underlying design, it’s really not all that different from all the other types of interactive digital signage.
And yet people are finding more and more use cases to really offer their audiences a comprehensive amount of information that they can go through at their own pace, which I think is also kind of a bonus. You know, you get this kind of feeling of like, hey, I’m not being guided through this. I chose what to see and what not to see. I decided, which kind of, again, I think creates engagement.
So, that’s a bit more information about where we are in the land of info kiosks, hall of fame boards, alumni boards and the like in digital signage. A continually evolving and reactive technological communication solution for all kinds of organizations, honestly.
I’d like to thank my guest today, Jill Perardi. She’s the senior director of professional services for Visix for talking to me today about this. Thanks, Jill. It’s always super interesting. Makes me want to go out and, you know, touch some screens.
Jill Perardi: Thanks for having me, Derek!
Derek DeWitt: And thank you again everybody for listening. I remind you once again that there is a transcript on the Visix website of the conversation that we just had.