10 Successful Elements of Digital Signage With Examples

Have you heard about digital signage?

It might be a new term.

For businesses with physical locations, though, digital signage is becoming important. These companies are looking for ways to get the attention of the people walking in their offices, stores or restaurants. These businesses want to earn the attention of visitors and get them to take action.

Each of these businesses has a goal and effective digital signage achieves that goal. The one issue businesses have is finding designers to create effective digital signage designs.

That’s where you come in.

Digital signage or digital display is something that’s an easy add-on service for most designers. If you can create web designs you can create digital signage. The processes are similar and so is the implementation. The principles that make web designs effective also make digital signage effective.

There are just a few slight differences.

Here are 10 successful elements of digital signage including examples for your inspiration.

1. Effective Use of Color Contrasting
   Colleges and universities have some great colors. They all use contrasting colors to make their logos stand out. If you watch college athletics you’ll see right away the contrasting colors in the team uniforms.The University of Tennessee uses contrasting colors for the headlines here on their display. The headlines have a blue background with white lettering. The blue contrasts well against the orange of the university’s logo. It’s a great way to bring attention to the display as people walk past.

   Site: University of Tennessee

    

2. Quick Communication of the Goal and Call to ActionThis is one of my favorite digital displays. Click through the link below to see more of it. The display is really simple and easy to navigate. The colors are great here just like the example above, but here we’re looking at the great call to action.

   As you can see within the first second of looking at the display there are two calls to action. It’s incredibly simple to make your selection and move along just like the university wants you to. It’s great design. It’s really hard to remove unnecessary elements, but Bemidji did a great job.

   Site: Bemidji State University

    

3. Streaming Elements to Draw Attention
   One of the biggest advantages of displays is the ability to use streaming elements. You can bring in live feeds from the Internet including Twitter feeds. That’s exactly what this example does. You can bring in live Twitter feeds from your own Twitter account or you can use feeds for hashtags or search terms.You can also bring in sports scores or any news items. The Internet has tons of feeds and it makes for a successful digital signage element to use these feeds to add value to the customers of your client.

   Site: Negro League Baseball Museum

4. Live Feeds from the InternetHere is another example of a university bring in live feeds from the web. You can see that the campus has a blog set up and the display brings in the RSS feed from that blog. This creates new content on the streaming display.

   With live feeds you get new items on the display. This is important if the client you have gets repeat visitors. You don’t want to show the same content to the same people all the time. They want fresh content just like they want fresh content on website.

   Site: George Mason University

    

5. Interactive Touchscreen ElementsInteractivity is a great feature of digital signage. UCSF Fresno does a great job with the interactivity here on their display. You can select elements on the page and really dig deep into the content. It’s like giving visitors on campus a computer they can use to search for information about anything at the college.

   This is a little different from the design you might be used to. You can really get creative with interactive design. Think about ways to get people’s attention with the design and then consider how to entertain them with the interactive nature of the design.

   Site: UCSF Fresno

6. Photography and Video
   Photos are videos are becoming so important in web design. This is true also for digital signage. People expect to see interesting elements when they’re walking through a campus, office or in this case a medical center. Give them something interesting to look at with photographs or even videos.

   You can use stock photography, but if the organization has their own photography be sure to use it. They could have photos on hand from print materials or from an event. Reuse these photos and re-purpose them for the digital signage. It saves money and your clients will love that.

   Site: Middle Tennessee Medical Center

7. Helpful Information (Maps, Directions, etc.)A map is a good element to have on a digital display. Think about a mall or another location like a hospital where people often struggle to find the right place to go. It’s frustrating to get there on time when you don’t know how to get there once you’re in the building.

   Here the tech center included an interactive map. You could get even more involved by allowing the person to move elements on the map so they can really figure out where they need to go.

   Site: South Dakota State University

8. Real-time Information
   Stocks are something a lot of businesses and business schools use on their digital displays. Here we have the University of Southern Alabama using the real-time stock updates for their digital display.

   You could use something like stocks or the news or anything that is updated in real-time. Again, we’re thinking about what will interest people each time they see the display. You want to give them something fresh. Once you earn their attention you can start marketing to them, which we talk about in the last section.

   Site: University of Southern Alabama

9. Announcements and ProclamationsSometimes the call to action is the announcement of an event. Here we have South Dakota State University using its digital display to announce a bike ride. You can see upcoming events and there is even a great call to action with the QR code.

   Some people wonder how effective QR codes are and while they may not work on billboards they do work well on digital displays. Think about a person waiting in a clinic waiting room. They’re just sitting there probably looking at their phone already. If they seem something interesting on the display they can scan it and get to more information.

   Site: South Dakota State University

    

10. Upselling and Additional Business Services
    Finally we have the upselling of the digital display. The business you work for likely has business goals for everything they do including digital display. This is a simple example of how a restaurant can upsell their specials to customers. It’s all about the conversion.Imagine the customers waiting for a table. They can look at the menu as they wait and learn about the specials. When they get to the table they’re so hungry and enticed that they order the special and the business can make more money.

    It can work in many ways for a variety of businesses including all the examples above.

    Site: Restaurant Display

Some Final Thoughts

Digital design is something that might be new to you. The transition from web design or graphic design to digital signage is not too difficult. There are a couple different elements to consider like the size of the display and how far away people are when they view the display, but if you design websites you’ll have no issue adding digital display design to your services.

Use digital display to sell more services to your clients. Or perhaps you can add more clients to your list by offering digital signage display. You might be surprised at how many businesses want this service, but they don’t know where or who to ask.

You can be their source and that means more revenue in your pocket.

Todd Hemme is a Director at Rise Vision, a free digital signage Web platform. He has years of experience in the digital display industry including experience working with top designers and business leaders on their digital signage campaigns. To learn more about the free digital signage platform that can help your design business click here.

Website:Rise Vision

Twitter:@RiseVision