SlideShare a Scribd company logo
Master’s Degree in Cognitive Science
The modern store: usage of multimodal technologies for
the improvement of the retail experience
Tutor Student
Professor Liliana Albertazzi Filippo Andolfatto
2
Master’s Degree in Cognitive Science 1
INTRODUCTION 5
CHAPTER 1. User Experience Design: definition and principles 9
1.1 Definitions of User Experience Design 9
1.2 The Six principles of User Centered Design 11
1.3 Conclusions 14
CHAPTER 2. Digital Signage Networks 15
2.1 What’s a Digital Signage in Deep 17
2.2 Why adopting Digital Signage 20
2.3 Fields of application of Digital Signage 21
2.5 State of the art of Digital Signage 22
2.4 Conclusion 33
CHAPTER 3. Digital Signage Networks: New Trends 35
3.1 Digital Signage networks as element of a holistic retail experience:
online and offline become similar and indistinguishable 36
3.2 Multimodality of the interaction/experience 38
3.3 Adaptability of the experience and the understanding of context 40
3.4 Integration of sensors and software logs in an analytics framework
42
3.6 Social Media integration on the digital signage network 43
3.7 Conclusion 45
CHAPTER 4. TouchDomain - The design process of a complex Digital
Signage Network 47
4.1 The Design process 48
4.2 Principal Milestones 50
CHAPTER 5. Usage of TouchDomain in a fashion store 65
5.1 TouchDomain in a Fashion Shop Scenario: the user journey 66
5.2 The Social Login as a key for the store 67
5.3 Gaming & Exploration 70
5.4 Chill-outing & Purchase 79
CHAPTER 6. Conclusion 83
3
Bibliography 87
Webliography 91
Acknowledgements 93
4
INTRODUCTION
In the last decade, the rise of the internet, the development of social media
networks and the advent of smartphones have changed our way of buying and
dealing with brands. Nowadays, we can buy our favourite trousers just with a
few taps on the phone on our way to work, share our purchases on our social
media channels before and after shopping to estimate our “likeability” and so
on.
In this complex scenario made of several “online factors & variable”,
local and real stores keep on playing a relevant role in the battle among
brands for the conquer (and understanding) of customers. Apple®, with its
own stores around the world is an example of how physical stores are part of
the brand strategy and philosophy that other competitors cannot ignore.
There are several rising trends that are affecting the in-store retail experience:
• Brands (especially high-end brand) are trying to break down the walls
between online stores and physical ones in order to achieve a stronger and
seamless brand reputation;
•   Brands are trying to reach a better knowledge of the complex buyer
personas (customer’s categories) thanks to algorithms that analyze user
5
preferences’ traced through social media channels, online stores, search
engines and finally real stores;
• Retail experience, as well as Online-Experience is moving in the direction
of adaptability based on those customer needs that could arise during the
buying process. According to Bettercout and Gwinner [1996] customizing
the delivery of service on the frontline is a key to customer satisfaction. For
example, a woman that has just bought a pair of jeans could be interested
in buying a t-shirt. In an e-commerce scenario (think of Amazon) these
kind of interactions with the customer occur regularly, whereas in an off-
line store this is still a developing trend that every brand is trying to follow
in several ways, using different technologies.
In this context, Practix, a software company based in Rovereto (TN)
specialized in the design and development of software for multitouch screen is
crafting TouchDomain (www.TouchDomain.it), a cloud-based CMS (Content
Management System) which can manage multimedia contents such as videos,
photos, presentations, pdf files, web pages etc. and can display them on big
interactive screens. Subsequently, thanks to a complex analytical framework,
the store manager and the store team would be able to find out selling trends
based on user interactions.
6
I started to collaborate with Practix in January 2015 when I took part in the
design of the product working as UX Designer. In the last year have been
working hard on this product using several design techniques that helped us
to understand the customer and final user needs and to create a product that
people use.
The whole overview on the development processes listed explained before
gave me a clear idea of different problems involved in this kind of modern
and innovative product development and this thesis aims to summarizing
them.
7
8
CHAPTER 1. User Experience Design:
definition and principles
Experience is a human condition, a mixture of memory & cognitive processes.
Experience differs for every person. According to Kelway [2012], this
complexity has led us to a place where a design discipline can grow and justify
its existence due to the importance of the quality of experiences that people
(customers, users or patients) can feel whilst using or interacting with ”digital”
products [Kelway 2012].
1.1 Definitions of User Experience Design
The term User Experience Design (Shortly UX Design) was coined in the
mid-90s by Donald Norman, co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group,
professor at KAIST (Korea), IDEO fellow, and a design theorist, studying the
fundamentals of modern design. As he admitted, he created this expression
giving that human interface and usability were too narrow [Norman 1998]. The
author wanted to cover all aspects of the person’s experience with the system
9
including industrial design, graphics, the interface, the physical interaction, and
the manual [Norman 1988]. User Experience Design was defined always by
Norman as a discipline based on the needs and interests of the user, with an
emphasis on making products usable and understandable [Norman 1988].
Customers and their own needs must dominate over the interface design and
they got to be interrogated at any step of the development process [Norman
1988].
Alan Cooper, gave his own interpretation of Experience Design in the field of
digital products. He defined it as the orchestration of a number of design
disciplines (Cooper et al. 2007) (see Figure 1).
Fig.1 Diagram shows user experience design (UX) of digital products as consisting of three overlapping
concerns: form, behavior, and content.
10
1.2 The Six principles of User Centered Design
ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) is a worldwide
federation that works in order to prepare International Standards defined as
ISO 9241-210:2010: a set of rules. It provides requirements and
recommendations for human-centred design principles and activities throughout
the life cycle of computer-based interactive systems. It is intended to be used by
those managing design processes, and is concerned with ways in which both
hardware and software components of interactive systems can enhance human–
system interaction (ISO 9241-210 2010).
In the same document they explain the six principles that define a user
centered design process:
1. The design is based upon an explicit understanding of users, tasks and
environment:
In every step of the design and development processes the team should
understand these three variable in order to design a product properly.
For example, the requirements and user needs that distinguish an interface
for listening to music in mobility such as a mp3 player, could not coincide
with the CAD-Software ones. (See Table. 1);
11
Table 1: example of different users, needs and environments for different interfaces
2. Users are involved throughout design and development:
People that got influence over a product (stakeholders, users, project team
etc.) should be involved in all the project steps. Co-Design methods, are
considered particularly valuable for eliciting ethical, legal, and social issues that
would otherwise go unconsidered (Petersen et al. 2015);
3. The design is driven and refined by user-centred evaluation:
Usability testing is a collection of techniques used to measure characteristics of a
user’s interaction with a product, usually with the goal of assessing the usability
of that product [Cooper et al. 2007]. Every issue, concern, and error entirely
resolved at this level […] can be 10 to 100 times more expensive to fix if found
later in the process [Fagan 1976];
mp3 Player CAD Software
Users Teenagers, Trekking
lovers, people on the
move
Architects, Designers,
Engineers…
Needs Listening to music in
mobility
Design, sharing
drawing with
customers, exploring
new solutions
Environments Outdoor Office
12
4. The process is iterative:
The standard defines this principle without any ambiguity: a good product
cannot be designed properly without iterations. Every product needs several
rounds of design and user evaluation tests to improve both its User
Experience and code quality.
5. The Design addresses the whole user experience
Figure 2 shows how the entire user experience is based on several factors as
usability, desirability, brand experience etc. perceived by the customer during
the interaction with the product.
fig.2 Picture that represents the “whole User Experience”
13
USEFULNESSUX USEFULNESS
USABILITY
DESIRABILITY
BRAND
EXPERIENCE
is easy to use
its aesthetics is amazing
I got a good brand perception
6. The Design team includes multidisciplinary skills and perspectives:
In the vast majority of teams collaboration represents a company activity that
happen between people with similar skill sets. This behaviour do not help
them nor in the error neither in the solution research.
Creating heterogeneous teams with higher collaboration levels is mandatory
to avoid previously described problems.
1.3 Conclusions
In this chapter we discussed what does User Experience Design means and
how it works. In the next one we will deepen the concept of Digital Signage
networks, exploring why they are important and showing also some market
statistics. At last we will list and analyze the state of the art of Digital Signage
Technologies.
14
CHAPTER 2. Digital Signage Networks
TouchDomain is a platform that can be associated to the concept of Digital
Signage or Digital Signage Networks, an important new channel for
communicating with consumers in retail shopping environments [Burke 2009].
Signs are becoming ubiquitous, in part because LCD displays have decreased
in cost more than tenfold over the past decade. LCD based digital signages are
appearing worldwide and digital menu boards are replacing static backlit menus
in fast-food restaurants. These dynamic wall and overhead displays can change
throughout the day, promoting different items for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
[…] In retail outlets, point-of-sale digital signs have proven effective in driving
sales, and malls and shopping centers now regularly use them for interactive
directory services [Want et al. 2012].
Several studies have proved that the benefits of the adoption of a digital
signage network include an increased product knowledge and brand awareness
among the consumers and the ability to influence customer behavior, with a
consequent potential increase in sales..
15
From Arbitron Digital Place-Based Video Study 2010 [Williams 2010], a
research which goal is to set universe estimates for digital place-based video by
benchmarking the size and profile of total viewers across the United States we
extracted the data contained in table 2 here below:
table 2. Data from Arbitron Digital Place-Based Video Study 2010
The first aim of this chapter is to analyze what a Digital Signage Network is
and to describe its technological elements. Then, we will go through some
statistics in order to understand the business importance of its adoption.
Finally, we will list and index the state of the art in the field of Digital Signage
Reach
The availability of digital place-based video has
reached a critical mass. 70% of U.S. residents
aged 12 or older have seen a digital video
display in a public venue in the past month; 52%
recall seeing one in the past week.
Comparison to Other Media
Digital video in public venues reaches more
Americans each month (70%) than video over
the Internet (43%) or Facebook (41%).
Top Venues for Overall Viewers
The top Live places to reach consumers with
digital video are grocery stores (28% of the U.S.
population aged 12 or older), shopping malls
(27%), large retail or department stores (20%),
medical ofLices (20%) and movie theaters
(19%).
Advertising Engagement
Viewers are engaged with the content; nearly
half (47%) of those who have seen a digital
place-based video in the past month speciLically
recall seeing an ad.
Effect on Purchase Patterns
Digital video ads have an effect on purchase
patterns. Nearly one in Live (19%) of those who
have seen a digital video ad say they have
made an unplanned purchase after seeing an
item featured on the screen.
16
in terms of technology and Human Computer Interaction to give a clear and
exhaustive overview of the topic.
2.1 What’s a Digital Signage in Deep
The Digital Signage is based on various methods of using computers and TV
Screens (as well as other kind of technologies) that are as efficient as possible
in business and interaction terms. For the companies it represents a brand
new way of communicating, informing, engaging and interacting with a wide
range of people with different needs. The content is rapidly updated, tested
and changed thanks to the adoption of cloud and other distributed
technologies.
However, in these modern digital signage systems content files and data
streams are not enough. Information and instructions are needed to control
how, where and when the content files and streams are displayed in screens. This
control information is stored in scheduling and playlist files [Lundstrøm 2008]
or in the most advanced networks it is gathered live from the environment as
the customers interacts with the system and their needs are predicted.
17
We can divide the modern digital signage system into three main
technological parts that are equally important:
- The management side: used to manage the contents, the scheduling files
and other routines performed by the digital signage owner (intended as
team). This part of the system is usually called CMS (Content
Management System) and it’s a web application invisible to final users.
- The cloud: cloud computing has recently emerged as a new paradigm for
hosting and delivering services over the Internet [Zhang et al, 2010]. We will
consider the cloud as the link between the management side and the client
side of the digital signage system, through which contents and controls are
transmitted to screens or other devices.
- The client side: is the terminal part of the network composed by screens,
sensors and any other device meant to transfer information to the user. At
this point, the connection between the management and client side
through the cloud seems to be unidirectional. Conversely, we will notice in
the next chapters how important analytics are in terms of “brand-customer
understanding”. Users’ Usage data gathered via sensors and software’s logs
are communicated from the client side to the management side. They are
stored and automatically inspected, cleaned, transformed and modeled by
18
the management server with the goal of discovering useful information,
suggesting conclusions, and supporting decision-making .1
Actually we can consider a Digital Signage Network as a bidirectional system.
Figure 3 represents its main components.
fig.3 Bidirectional representation of a Digital Signage Network
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_analysis1
19
2.2 Why adopting Digital Signage
“Digital Signage is becoming a reputable marketing resource as technology advances continue to
improve capabilities. Despite businesses in the past being hesitant to incorporate signage into
their marketing strategy, forward-thinking corporates are now seizing the opportunity to attract
attention, leverage up-sells and influence purchase decisions.” - [Anderson 2009]
In this section we will explain and understand why the Digital Signage is
becoming an important topic in terms of business for bigger and smaller
brands:
1. More than 25% of organizations deems "multichannel campaign
management" to be one of their highest priorities and Digital Signage
is part of this strategy: Multichannel Retail Report 2012 published by
Consultancy on September, 2012 is based on a survey of 1,000 consumers
in the UK and 1,000 consumers in the US. It underlines how the vast
majority of UK consumers see the ability to purchase from a retailer from
different channels as important (Multichannel Retail Report 2012). Digital
Signage networks are considered an integral part of this strategy.
2. 63% of people report that Digital Signage attracts their attention:
Implementing a digital signage system offers a lot of opportunities for
organizations to promote their latest products and services thanks to the
customer’s attention that a screen is able to attract;
20
3. Higher recall rate: “[..] digital signage has a recall rate higher than any
other form of traditional media with 83% of people recalling at least one ad
seen on a digital billboard in the past 30 days.” [Williams 2010]
4. Digital Signage reaches the public: According to Williams [2010] 70% of
US residents aged 12 or older have seen a digital video display in a public
venue in the past month […]. Public venues currently displaying OOH
digital signage include health clubs, shopping malls, medical offices,
restaurants, bars, coffee houses, movie theaters, and large retailer/
department stores.
5. Digital signage increase overall sales volume by 31.8%: Digital Signage
creates an immersive and integrated in-store experience, maximizing
cross-sells, upsells and impulse purchases by quickly adapting and
deploying content in real time.
2.3 Fields of application of Digital Signage
We could identify the the three main fields of application of Digital Signage
Networks as:
21
• Informative: used to communicate timetables, waiting time, weather
information, maps and directions;
• Educative and formative: used as interactive and supporting tool
during lessons of any topic and level. Applied also on continuing
education courses.
• Persuasive: Applied to marketing campaigns with ad-hoc promotional
messages, Digital Signage Networks are able to direct customers toward
specific areas, to increase the duration of their visit and finally to
improve sales rate.
2.5 State of the art of Digital Signage
As we mentioned in 2.2, Digital Signage could be applied on various
technologies: in this section we will introduce some examples of
representative technologies applied to Digital Signage field that we could
consider as the state-of-the-art intended as the highest level of general
development, as of a device, technique, or scientific field achieved at a particular
time - Wikipedia
22
1- NG CONNECT (1):
What it is:
Interactive Kiosk with a persuasive goal.
How it works:
On the top of the screen it displays the name of the shopping center and the
weather info. The central part is sub-divided into two main areas. As we
could observe in the picture beside, in the first area (ADS AREA) customers
will usually see advertisement. In the second one discounts would be
continuously updated during the day. The
Customer is able to save discounts by leaning-
on a smartphone on a specific NFC-area of the
kiosk. According to E. Haselsteiner et al
[2010] Near Field Communication (NFC)
technology is a wireless communication
interface with a working distance limited to
about 10 cm that enable the communication of
data between two different devices [Haselsteiner
et al 2010].
23
Shopping
Center name
10:00
ADS AREA
Discounts
NFC AREA
Fig. 4 Wireframe that represents the NG-CONNECT persuasive interface
2- NG CONNECT (2):
What it is:
Interactive Kiosk with an informative goal.
How it works:
On the top of the screen the name of the store is displayed.
The central part is sub-divided into two main areas. As in NG CONNECT 1,
in the first area customers will usually see advertisement one dedicated to
advertisement. whereas in the second one NFC sensors enable customers to
display information about products swiped on the NFC area
24
STORE NAME
10:00
ADS AREA
NFC AREA
INFO 1
INFO 2
INFO3
INFO 4
__________________
PRICE: 2,00€
BOTTLE INFO
STORE NAME
10:00
ADS AREA
NFC AREA
INFO 1
INFO 2
INFO3
INFO 4
__________________
PRICE: 2,00€
BOTTLE INFO
DETAIL
Fig. 5 Wireframe that represents the NG-CONNECT informative interface
3- PATRIZIA PEPE’s INTERACTIVE EXPERIENCE:
What it is:
Interactive Kiosk with both informative and persuasive goals.
How it works:
Thanks to the adoption of RFID (Radio-frequency identification) readers and
tags applied to clothes and shoes the user is able to gather more information
about clothing items that she would like to buy. Radio-frequency
identification technology uses electromagnetic fields to automatically identify
and track tags attached to objects, which contain electronically stored
information such as sizes, available colours and more.
In stand-by mode the screen displays images and videos about fashion shows
and clothing collections (fig. 6). At the same time the screen presents a call-
to-action button that invites users to interact with the device.
As the interaction starts, (fig 6-7), the interface layout changes: three main
areas are shown:
- Top: fashion show videos, which are related to the chosen article, are
displayed;
- Central: the article is displayed with different perspectives;
- Bottom: other articles of the same clothing collection are shown;
25
26
FULL SCREEN
ADVERTISEMENT
FASHION SHOW
VIDEO
CALL TO ACTION
INACTIVE ACTIVE
FASHION SHOW
VIDEO
Fig. 6 Wireframe that represents the PATRIZIA PEPE kiosk
Fig. 7 Wireframe that represents contents displayed on an active PATRIZIA PEPE kiosk
4- LG’s Digital Signage solution for automotive:
What it is:
Interactive Kiosk with an informative/persuasive goal
How it works:
The kiosk enable customers to: select the model of car they are interested in,
discover more info about it and make an interactive 3D virtual tour inside
and outside of the car (fig. 8).
27
BRAND
LOGO
BRAND
LOGO
Fig. 8 Wireframe that represents contents displayed on an active LG’s Digital Signage Network
5- FabbricaDigitale EXPO 2015:
What it is:
Interactive Totem with an informative goal. It was installed in Milan during
the EXPO Exhibition in 2015.
How it works:
The kiosk is composed of two different screens with two different scopes:
The upper screen is used firstly to display ads and informative messages.
The position helps to reach a wider public with important information.
The screen on the bottom displays a map with two different view’s options:
- “Services around you”: next POI (Point of interest) are highlighted;
- “Explore EXPO”: it’s a path-finder that helps visitors to get to a
POI or a Pavillion inside the exhibition;
28
29
advertisement
way-finder
Fig. 9 Wireframe that represents the setup of screens at EXPO 2015
6- Topshop’s magic mirror:
What it is:
A mirror that uses 3d mapping techniques to display “digital clothes” as an
overlay on the customer’s real-time video.
How it works:
On January 2010, 3D mapping appeared in our living room thanks to
Microsoft Kinect®, a line of motion sensing input devices by Microsoft for Xbox
360 and Xbox One video game consoles and Windows PCs. Based around a
webcam-style add-on peripheral, it enable users to control and interact with
their console/computer without the need for a game controller, through a
natural user interface using gestures and spoken commands (Microsoft , 2009).
In less than two years this technology had a great success and it has been
“adopted” and installed inside stores and commercial centers.
Top Shop’s Magic Mirror allows customers to virtually try on different
clothing articles and accessories: customers have the chance to preview
products without trying them physically on.
Kinect creates a 3D map of the shopper (fig 10), then it adds an overlay over
the video acquired with the camera. The results is a 3D-projection of a t-shirt
(as in Fig. 10) on the customer’s body (Fig.11).
30
31
Microsoft Kinect sensor
Shopper
3D Overlay
Fig. 10 Example of image acquisition with Microsoft Kinect
32
fig.11 Representation of the Virtual T-Shirt projected over a video of the body of the customer
2.4 Conclusion
In this chapter we introduced several examples of Digital Signage Networks,
in order to try to show in how many fields this technology can be applied,
with different purposes and “way of interact with”.
We will now concentrate on the new trends that Digital Signage technology is
experiencing
33
34
CHAPTER 3. Digital Signage Networks:
New Trends
There are at least four brand new trends that arise from the world of research
and business about the future of Digital Signage Networks inside stores:
• Digital Signage networks as element of a holistic retail experience where
online and offline stores become similar, complementary and
indistinguishable;
• Multimodality of the experience
• Adaptability of the experience;
• Integration of sensors in an analytics framework;
• Social Media
We will analyze them in this chapter in order to give a strong background of
the future of digital signage technologies.
35
3.1 Digital Signage networks as element of a holistic retail
experience: online and offline become similar and
indistinguishable
The customer is interacting with (the) brand… they don’t care about the
channel. I’m the same customer in each interaction; the whole of the experience
should be greater than the sum of its parts [Mcmullin and Starmer 2010].
Our day-to-day activities are changing, they are becoming cross-channel
experiences that require us not only to move from medium to medium, from
device to device, but across domains [Resmini and Rosati 2011].
The digital purchasing process could start digital with an online ads banner
informing us that there’s a new product, ending up in the physical shop,
picking the product at the retail store and viceversa.
The distance between our digital and real life decreased enormously in the
last decade. In the United States, 53% of consumers reportedly buy products off-
line after they research them online, whereas another 43% start their research
online, either at their desktop computer or through a mobile device, but then
find themselves in need to call a customer service number or speak with a
human operator to complete the transaction, usually because they cannot find
the information they are looking online [Mcmullin and Starmer 2010]. This
constant shifting, this moving back and forth between what is digital and what is
36
physical turns every communication into a cross-channel communication and
pushes customers toward a holistic and ubiquitous approach to products and
services [Resmini and Rosati 2011]. Again, Resmini and Rosati [2011] argue
that we should think about an emergent information-based system where old
and new media and physical and digital environments are designed, delivered,
and experienced as a whole [Resmini and Rosati 2011]. Two Italian
information architects, Davide Potente and Erika Salving [2009] found out
that “a close analysis of the Apple website and, in particular, the Apple Retail
37
Fig. 12 Map of correspondences between Apple website taxonomy and products’ placement inside the
Apple Retail Store
Store highlights the role of information architecture in building bridge
experiences (fig. 12). Information Architecture can cross various contexts of
experience with the objective of defining a unique human- information
interaction model by means of proper organization of information flows and
tasks (Potente, Salving 2009).
Again, the online experience and the store layout, combined with
technologies installed inside it, share a common information organization and
their differences should be relegated to obvious and necessary characteristics
of the interface. We should take this consideration into account when
designing a modern information system such as a digital signage network.
3.2 Multimodality of the interaction/experience
In the first decade of 21st century, digital signage networks were merely a TV
network able to broadcast only advertising content used in substitution of
printed advertisement. Users were “passive audiences” in a world where the
number of tv-screens installed in public spaces as squares, stores and
commercial centers able to attract their attention were increasing day by day.
38
The need for a useful, interactive and immersive experience arose with the
advent of vertical and horizontal touchscreen, mobile devices, NUIs (Natural
User Interfaces) such as Microsoft Kinect® and 2D and 3D projector.
Some interactive displays allow users to navigate the content by pressing
buttons located nearby. The use of the touchscreen experienced a resurgence
in popularity in the past five years as a result of the success of mobile devices
that use this interactive interface, namely, the iPhone and Android
smartphones, as well as the increasingly popular tablet computers and e-book
readers. An interesting consequence of this popularity is that people who see
non-interactive digital signage are touching the screens and expecting a reaction.
Even for signs that have a traditional touch capability, users are likely to try
using multitouch gestures to zoom in and out on the display [Want et al. 2012].
NUIs and cam-based systems are interfaces that use camera or 3D mapping
technology to track users movements and using motion-tracing information
to control the interface. This creates immersive experiences such as Topshop’s
magic mirror (see chapter 2).
Mobile devices often become an integral part of the user experience with a
digital signage network. They could be used as controller, to store information
with a quick data-transmission via NFC or WI-FI networks between the kiosk
and the personal device. Furthermore there are innovative ways to use mobile
39
devices as keys to have access to social profile credentials without typing any
password or other sensible data on a big screen placed in a public space.
3.3 Adaptability of the experience and the understanding of
context
In computer science, the term adaptive system that are context-aware refers to
a process in which an interactive system adapts its behavior to individual users
based on information acquired about its user(s), the context of use and its
environment. Although adaptive systems have been long-discussed in academia
and have been an aspiration for computer scientists and researchers [Itzkovitch
2012].
Adaptability is a key factor in terms of user experience and it is based on the
concept of “Context” and “Context awareness” where:
- Context is defined as the situation within which something exists or
happens, and that can help explain it - Cambridge Dictionary
- […] context awareness is a term that describes the ability of the computer
to sense and act upon information about its environment, such as location,
time, temperature or user identity. This information can be used not only
to tag information as it is collected in the field, but also to enable selective
40
responses such as triggering alarms or retrieving information relevant to
the task at hand [Ryan et al 1998]
Each user has a range of internal factors such as gender, age, saved
preferences, social interactions etc. that help a Digital Signage Network in
order to determine user’s needs and adapt himself to them.
Furthermore, there are external factors such as time, weather, place where the
system is installed that are useful in order to provide the right informative/
persuasive information users at the right time.
Here there are some adaptive factors:
For example, it’s likely that a user will buy a coffee early in the morning
independently if he’s a man or a woman.
INTERNAL FACTORS EXTERNAL FACTORS
Gender Weather
Age Time (morning, midday, early/late
afternoon etc.)
Social Interactions Period of the year (Christmas,
Easter, Summer, Winter etc.)
Saved Preferencies Place where the system is
installed (commercial center,
square, store etc)
41
The main business value of Context-aware applications is to make things
simpler by decreasing the cognitive load. Users are able of doing tasks quicker
and better because they can concentrate in the main task without taking
distractive decisions.
3.4 Integration of sensors and software logs in an analytics
framework
As we underlined in chapter 2, digital signage networks are bidirectional in
the sense that they are able not only to transmit content but also to gather
data through sensors and software logs.
In a service like the one described in this thesis, sensors are:
- Camera-based video acquisition sensors: Low cost cameras installed in
proximity of terminal devices. They are usually used in analysis of
Temporal metrics of a person’s dwell time, display in-view time and
attention time are extracted. The system also determines demographic
metrics of the gender and age group (Ravnik et al 2012).
- Motion-Tracking sensors are usually used to determine the same metrics
but with more precision. Always Ravnik et al use this technologies in their
analysis and they found that that 35% of customers specifically looked-at the
display, having the average attention time of 0.7 s. Interestingly, the attention
42
time was substantially higher for men (1.2 s) than for women (0.4 s). Age
group comparison reveals that children (1–14 years) are the most responsive
to the digital signage. Finally, the analysis shows that the average attention
time is significantly higher when displaying the dynamic content (0.9 s) when
compared with the static content (0.6 s). [Ravnik and Solina 2012].
- Software logs: usually used to determine the number of interactions,
duration of it, number of opened contents etc. They are usually used in
bundle with sensors to reach an higher level of accuracy;
Usually all data gathered from a digital signage installation are analyzed with
machine learning and data mining algorithms and techniques in order to
discover patterns in large data sets.
Moreover, usage data must be cross-checked with sales and transaction
volume data in order to determine the success or unsuccess of a digital
signage campaign.
3.6 Social Media integration on the digital signage network
Social medias provide a more personal and customizable way to get users
involved through digital signage display. Restaurants, hotels, and even office
spaces are incorporating live social media into their content rotation, showcasing
43
customers’ tweets, Instagram photos, and more to drive engagement [Bovet
2015].
Social media integration increase the involvement: over time, digital signage
that lacks interaction tends to blend into the background after a while,
becoming just another advertisement to viewers. By incorporating live social
media feeds, brands can recapture viewers’ attention by letting them have a
say in their display’s content.
Social media generates always new fresh contents: Creating new and fresh
contents is one of the most expensive (both in money and time terms)
challenges for social media managers and marketers. Users’ posts will create
fresh, automated content will little to no work [Bovet 2015] on the brand side.
Social media is free word-of-mouth marketing for your brand: 84% of consumers
say they either completely or somewhat trust recommendations from family,
colleagues, and friends about products – making these recommendations the
information source ranked highest for trustworthiness. [Nielsen 2013] and 74%
of consumers identify word-of-mouth as a key influencer in their purchasing
decision. [Ogilvy/Google/TNS 2014].
Digital signage offers a great platform for feedback: Brands are opening up a
new channel for buyers feedbacks.
44
Here we described the usage of social media integration only under a “user-
content generation” light. In the next chapter we’ll see how Practix is using
social media on digital signage networks to create customized experiences.
3.7 Conclusion
In the last two chapters we analyzed exhaustively the rising trends that are
emerging from the digital signage scenario in order to have a complete
overview of the state of the art and future integrations. In the next chapter we
will go through the design process of TouchDomain and we’ll retrieve a lot of
examples taken from the last two chapters and how we integrated in the
software.
45
46
CHAPTER 4. TouchDomain - The
design process of a complex Digital
Signage Network
My collaboration with Practix started on January 2015, when TouchDomain
was still a software at the embryonal stage. It was already possible to integrate
NUI (Natural User Interfaces) such as Microsoft Kinect® and other important
features that other digital signage services do not provide yet, even after years
of development.
In section 4.1 we will go through the methods that we adopted as standard
routines in our design and in the development process at Practix.
Consequently, in section 4.2 we will illustrate some milestones that we
reached in the last months with a particular focusing on the human-computer
interaction point of view.
47
4.1 The Design process
The design process is a sequence of procedures that every company refines
over years of researching. It’s an iterative standardized path created with the
aim of guiding the design team on the creation process, from the very raw
idea or first intuition to the final product refinement and release.
In our company we developed a routine that goes through seven different
steps:
1. Business request (optional): TouchDomain as other B2B (Business to
Business) software has been developed in order to satisfy a business
request expressed by a customer. Clients and commercial partners are
our “eye on the market” and they are able to understand how to create
user experiences that will fit into it. This step is not mandatory: not
every feature designed and developed for TouchDomain came from a
business request.
2. User-needs (mandatory): every feature in a software must connect a
business value to one or more user needs (intended as final users, i.e.
buyers) in order to become useful, successful and ensure acceptance
from the user base. Understanding and “translating” them in a feature is
one of the challenges of the design team’s work;
48
3. Design (mandatory): Design is meant as the rationalization and the
ideation of a feature.
4. Prototyping (almost mandatory): a prototype is a draft version of a
product that allows you to explore your ideas and show the intention
behind a feature or the overall design concept to users before investing time
and money into development . A prototype can be anything from paper2
drawings (low-fidelity) to a “real piece of software” that allows click-
through of a few pieces of content to a fully functioning application
(high-fidelity).  It is much cheaper to change a product early in the
development process than to modify it after developers already
developed the website, application or any other piece of software.
5. Testing (mandatory): In his book “About Face 3: Essentials of
Interaction Design” [2007], Alan Cooper defines usability tests as a
collection of techniques used to measure characteristics of a user’s
interaction with a product, usually with the goal of assessing the usability
of that product. Basically, usability testing (or user-testing) is focused on
measuring how well users can complete specific, standardized tasks, as
well as which problems they encounter while running the test.
http://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/prototyping.html2
49
6. Iteration (mandatory): It is common to move back and forth between
steps and to iterate the whole process several times until you have a solid
design solution [Cooper et al. 2007].
7. Release (mandatory)
4.2 Principal Milestones
Alpha Release - February 2105
The first Alpha version of TouchDomain was released on February 2015. The
design process started just a few weeks before. The software was a simple
presentation tool (called slideshow project) which displayed .pdf (Portable
Document Format) files on vertical and horizontal oriented screens. The user
50
Fig. 13 User-Skeleton tracked with Microsoft Kinect
51
Fig. 14 Example of shop window equipped with TouchDomain NUI interface
is able to control the pages’ flows via touchscreen or NUI (Natural User
Interface) such as Microsoft Kinect® (Fig14).
This application suits perfectly for the use during both opening and closing
hours to engage shoppers inside and outside the shop.
Beta Release - March/April 2105
In the second release we worked hard on the design and the development of a
multiuser and multitouch interface that let users discover contents about the
store such as catalogues, pictures, videos and presentations in an organized
and captivating way. We called this project “Multi-content Presenter” since it
can display different contents to more users at the same time.
52
Multiuser Interface
In a crowded shop (let’s say >20 guests at the same time) there is an high
probability rate that more than one person would be interested in interacting
with TouchDomain’s screens at the same time (Fig. 15) .
Usually computer applications do not effectively support co-located, multi-user
interaction because of their underlying one-user/one-computer design paradigm
[Stewart et al., 1999]. This is due to the adoption of small-size screens and
applications designed for a single-user usage.
Conversely, a modern multiuser interface such as TouchDomain, with its
design must support: natural interpersonal interaction, transitions between
activities, transitions between personal and group work, transitions between
53
Fig. 15. example of multi-user interaction on Touchdomain
multitouch surfaces collaboration and external work, the use of physical objects
(Scott S. et al 2003).
INTERPERSONAL INTERACTION:
The multitouch surfaces system is supposed to have an ergonomic form factor
suitable for the collaborative activity being performed by the users. It must
support group and environment awareness in order to guarantee a fluid
interpersonal interaction inside a group of 2 to 4 users.
The awareness of an environment is created and sustained through the
perception-action cycle. When a person enter an environment (i.e.: a shop) in
order to do a particular task, they bring with them a general understanding of
the situation and a basic idea of what they are looking for. The information
that they then pick up from the environment can be interpreted in light of
existing knowledge to help the person determine the current state of the
environment—that is, what is happening—and also help them to predict what
will happen next (Gutwin and Greenberg 2000).
TRANSITIONS BETWEEN PERSONAL AND GROUP WORK
In TouchDomain both personal activities and group activities are involved in
the user interaction on the multitouch screen. For example, we investigated
the usage of two different messages inside personal areas for personal
activities and inside a centered Group Dialog Windows for group activities.
Location and orientation of these messages are crucial to attract the attention
of the user or the group when involved in the interaction.
Example of Personal to Group Interaction - Closing action of an application
54
Closing an application is always a delicate task to design properly especially in
a group workspace. An “Exit button” (Fig.16) is to be found in each personal
area (Fig. 17) around the table, oriented toward the owner of the area: every
user can decide to press it independently.
55
EXIT
tap to
start
EXIT
tapto
start
EXIT
tapto
start
EXIT
tapto
start
exit button
USER
1
USER
2USER
3
USER
4
fig. 16: EXIT BUTTON inside personal area of the user
EXIT
tap to
start
EXIT
tapto
start
EXIT
tapto
start
EXIT
tapto
start
personal user’s area
USER
1
USER
2
USER
3
USER
4
fig. 17: personal user’s area: each user has a personal workspace area where controls are grouped.
Once EXIT is pressed/selected by one of the customers, a lighter layer will
obscure the interface and highlight the Group Dialog Window. The aim of
this “separation layer” is to create a clear cognitive and interactive contrast
and separation between personal and group decisions. The Group Dialog
Window is placed at the center of the screen and it continuously rotates by
360°. Both position and orientation are neutral if compared with user’s
positions around the table (Fig. 18).
This design pattern was developed in order to elicit an urgency of cooperation
between users around the table in order to push them to make a shared
decision.
56
EXIT
tap to
start
EXIT
tapto
start
EXIT
tapto
start
EXIT
tapto
start
ARE YOUSURE?
USER
1
USER
2
USER
3
USER
4
Group Dialog Window
Light overlay
Fig. 18: Example of Group Dialog Window
SUPPORTING TRANSITIONS BETWEEN MULTITOUCH SURFACES
COLLABORATION AND EXTERNAL WORK
TouchDomain should be able to incorporate work generated externally to the
multitouch surfaces system into the current multitouch surfaces activity (Scott S.
et al 2003).
We designed it as a tool which can ferry the customer experience from real to
digital world and viceversa.
TouchDomain allows buyers to transfer previously generated files, such as
pictures taken in the shop with their smartphone on the multitouch surfaces
system thanks to the adoption of QR-Codes and other communication
services as RFID and NFC.
Transferring files either across a network or using storage devices is often
more complicated and cumbersome than necessary. Transferring data from one
display to another should be as simple as saying “I want this information
displayed there” while gesturing to the appropriate data and display. (Scott S. et
al 2003). This is the experience that we tried to reach with TouchDomain.
SUPPORT THE USE OF PHYSICAL OBJECTS
Multitouch surfaces must support those practices that mix together the use of
real objects with digital information systems and use the first ones as gates for
the seconds. Thanks to the installation of RFID tags inside shoes and clothes
users automatically get access to information related to the product placed on
the interactive screen (Fig. 19).
57
TouchDomain 1.0 Release - Summer/Autumn 2105
In the last release of the software we tried to integrate the use of social media
on our Digital Signage System. In order to make this happen, we added a
feature that allows customers to post contents displayed on the screen on their
social networks channels.
During the design process we met several challenges in solving privacy-related
problems. We will describe them in the next pages.
“HOW TO LOGIN“ INTO A SOCIAL MEDIA ON A 144” INCH DISPLAY
INTO A PUBLIC SPACE
Competitors’ solutions usually use touch-keyboards to allow users to login
into their social media networks (i.e.: Facebook® ). We believe that displaying
the standard online form into a big-size screen causes:
58
Fig.19 A customer uses a shoe as gate to get access to augmented digital information
• A broken interaction-flow: customers would like to log in into Facebook® to
post a picture or other contents. The login interaction should not take too
long: entering an email address and a password on a big screen with a wide
keyboard increases the probability of mistyping errors, which could
interrupt the customers’ flow
• Privacy-related problems: moreover, users would not accept to show their
own email and password to any other person inside the store (Fig. 20). This
kind of interfaces could hack their privacy.
The two points described above gave us a good incentive to design a better
way to login into Facebook® on a wide screen display installed in a public
space.
59
MOBILE SOCIAL LOGIN
According to WE ARE SOCIAL (2014) , in Italy, the smartphone penetration3
as a percentage of the total population is equal to 41%. Moreover 26% of the
http://www.slideshare.net/wearesocialsg/social-digital-mobile-around-the-world-3
january-2014?ref=http://iquii.com/2014/01/13/statistiche-e-trend-su-internet-social-media-e-
mobile-per-il-2014-in-italia-e-nel-mondo/
60
Fig.20: a user is typing his Facebook password on a wide interactive screen while another person is
observing the operation
world population has at least a social account. Facebook is the most used with
1.276 millions of accounts.
Laying on these assumptions we developed a feature called Mobile Social
Login where:
• The customer’s personal device becomes the instrument to login into
Facebook®;
• Mail and password are typed on the personal device and not on the big-size
screen in order to protect the customer’s privacy;
• We developed this feature on Facebook® as a pilot study, in order to
evaluate its efficiency and user acceptance. In the future we will integrate
other social media platforms, such as Twitter® and Pinterest®.
How Mobile Social Login works
We will develop a scenario in order to describe the feature. Scenarios are a
method of design problem solving by concretization: making use of a specific
story to both construct and illustrate design solutions [Cooper et al. 2007].
61
Introducion
Arianna is 31 years old woman and she loves fashion. She’s not “internet
addicted” but she has a smartphone and a personal account on Facebook®. She
will stay a week in Milan for a convention.
Scenario
She is walking on a central street when she is attracted by the Digital Signage
installed outside the new XYZ ’S shop (XYZ is a fantasy name for a brand in
the fashion industry). She decides to visit the shop and she goes inside it.
62
Fig. 21: Detail of the call-to-action that invites Arianna to scan the QR-Code to logging in into her
personal Facebook account
Arianna notices that the big-size screen on the wall is displaying the clothing
of the latest XYZ’s collection. She approaches the screen and she notices a QR-
Code that invites her to “Login with Facebook and share our amazing
contents®” (Fig. 21).
She takes her smartphone from the bag and she scans the QR-Code.
Once scanned, the code loads a webpage on her smartphone where
TouchDomain asks her the permission to get access to Facebook. Arianna
accepts without hesitation and in less than 15 seconds her Facebook accounts
is “connected” with TouchDomain (Fig.22) .
Now she can post all the contents displayed on the screen on her own
Facebook’s timeline and get real time feedbacks about her posts. Furthermore,
63
Fig. 22: Arianna just performed the Mobile Social Login on her smartphone
in this way she implicitly helps XYZ in reaching the social audience of
Arianna (Fig.23).
In this section we described how a simple interaction, such as logging in into
a personal social network can be performed in a privacy-safe way thanks to
the use of common technological elements such as a QR-Code and a
smartphone. In the next chapter we will describe the application of
TouchDomain® in the fashion industry scenario in order to explore different
uses of such a framework.
64
Fig. 23: Arianna’s Post on her Facebook’s timeline helps XYZ to reach a wider audience on this social
media channel
CHAPTER 5. Usage of TouchDomain in
a fashion store
In this chapter we will describe the adoption of a Digital Signage Network in a
fashion shop scenario. We’ll understand that the experience inside the shop is
an integration of real and virtual moments: sometimes technology is
prominent, sometimes it works in the background in order to create
knowledge, awareness, entertainment and socialization in and between
customers.
We will use the scenario design technique previously introduced in chapter 4,
in order to explain our design choices in a simple and intuitive manner.
65
5.1 TouchDomain in a Fashion Shop Scenario: the user
journey
In the modern fashion store the adoption of TouchDomain represents a useful
support for the store operators. On the one hand, videos and pictures shown
on the screen give customers the chance to discover and hopefully be
attracted by other clothing items; on the other hand these high-quality
contents represents an innovative and engaging experience
By entering inside the store the customer will start a five-step path (Fig.24
above) that should convince him to purchase. We will describe this process by
66
Fig. 24 Customer’s five-steps path in the shop
using the scenario technique with the support of sketches and pictures in
order to explain this experience as clearly as possible
5.2 The Social Login as a key for the store
Mark is a tourist from the US. He is going to spend ten days in Rome. He is
enjoying the historical center of the Italian capital when his attention is
attracted by the store of a famous Italian fashion brand. He decides to have a
look inside (Fig. 25).
67
Fig. 25 Diezel store from the outside
The sliding doors open in order to let him go inside. A store assistant
welcomes Mark and invites him to scan the QR-Code displayed on a little
screen at the entrance desk. By capturing the QR-Code, he gets a little
discount for the next purchase (Fig. 26).
68
Fig. 26 Mark is scanning the QR-Code in exchange of a little discount
Mark accepts the offer. He takes his smartphone and captures the code with
the camera. The QR-Code loads the Facebook® Mobile Social Login page. (see
chapter 4 section 4.2).
Just a few seconds after the login he receives the discount bonus for the next
purchase (Fig. 27). The digital coupon will be retrieved during the payment
process by and enables him to get the discount.
Mark has just completed the Mobile Social Login. Now it’s time to visit the
shop and find interesting products.
69
Fig. 27 Example of digital coupon
5.3 Gaming & Exploration
A sign near the entrance desk (Fig. 28) informs Mark about the opportunity
of creating a “personal whish-list” by scanning QR-CodeS placed on different
clothing items and around the shop. The information will be categorized
within the Multi-content presenter inside TouchDomain and they will be
retrievable for future interactions and consultation.
While exploring the shop, Mark notices the new Spring/Summer Collection. A
digital catalogue is displayed on the interactive screen. Mark decided to
explore it. An univocal QR-Code is associated to each clothing item (fig. 29).
On the bottom of the screen Mark reads a label that says: “Scan the QR-Code
to add it (clothing item) to your wish-list”. Mark performs the operation. (Fig.
30).
70
Fig. 28 Signage that informs the user about the possibility of creating a wish-list
71
Fig. 29 Catalogue displayed on an interactive screen. A QR-Code is associated to each item
Fig. 30 A message informs Mark about the accomplishment of the operation
Mark finds a bag on a stand just a few step away from the screen.
He thinks by himself: “I could gift it to Clara” (Clara is Mark’s girlfriend).
Again he noticed a QR-Code on applied on the stand and he scans it. This
time the web browser of his smartphones shows a menu with two buttons (Fig.
31).
72
Fig. 31 A two buttons menu opened on the smartphone web browser
He takes a picture of the product and after it, he adds it to his wish-list again
(Fig.32).
.
Now Mark moves upstairs to the leather collection’s section of the shop. He
notices an amazing leather jacket (Fig.33).
73
Fig. 32 Marks added a picture took by himself to his wish-list
He takes the clothing item near a multitouch screen. There is a table just in
front of it: a personal shopper invite Marks to lean the jacket on it (Fig.34).
74
Fig. 33 Marks finds a leather jacket from the Spring/Summer Collection 2016
Fig. 34 Marks lay the jacket on the table
Thanks to the RFID reader on the table and to a RFID tag attached to the
jacket, the contents related to the clothing items are opened on the interactive
screen. Moreover, the personal shopper could navigate on the interface and
shows to Mark other items of the collection (Fig. 35)
75
Fig. 35 Other items related to the collection are displayed on the multitouch screen
Mark decides that it’s time to try the jacket. He goes to the fitting room. After
wearing the jacket, he goes towards the Magic Mirror. Here Mark scans the
QR-Code in order to initialize the interaction (Fig. 36).
76
Fig. 36 The magic mirror equipped with a Microsoft Kinect device
Once scanned, TouchDomain is able to “recognize” Mark. The interface
informs mark that it will record him in 3-2-1 seconds (Fig. 37).
77
Fig. 37 Magic Mirror informs Mark about the recording of a video that will start in a while
A 10-seconds video is recorded. Then, Mark decides to try three other jackets.
A video of Mark is recorded for each item. Indeed Mark is able to watch all
the videos and decide which one could be posted on Facebook®.
After clicking on the Facebook® icon, TouchDomain matches the post for
Mark with several default tags such as #fashion #Diezel #shareit.
78
Fig. 37 Mark decides which video is ok to be published on Facebook®
5.4 Chill-outing & Purchase
Mark decides to take a drink in the lounge zone of the shop. Here, a bartender
offers him a cocktail. Mark accepts it and he takes a seat nearby one of the
interactive tables available.
Mark meets another visitor of the store, Giulia and after a small talk he
decides to show her his wish-list.
He perfoms the Mobile Social Login on the table by scanning the QR-Code
and all the contents (pictures, videos and catalogue’s items) saved during his
visits appear on the screen (Fig. 38).
79
Fig. 38 Wish-list is retrieved and displayed on the screen
He opens the video about the leather jacket trial and he stares surprised at the
25 like that his video received in less than half an hour (Fig.39).
The success of the video persuades Marks to purchase the leather jacket. He
says goodbye to Giulia and he approaches the cash desk.
The check-out assistant asks for the coupon that Mark received at the shop
entrance. The cashier asks Mark to scan the QR-Code available on the desk.
80
Fig. 39 The interface displays the 25 likes received from Mark’s Faceook® friends
Once the operation proceeded, the coupon is automatically retrieved by Once
that the operation is done the coupon is automatically retrieved by
TouchDomain and it discounts the final price (Fig. 40)
Mark is satisfied by his shopping. It’s time to leave the shop with the bag in
his hands. When exiting the shop Mark notices his video on the big screen at
the entrance (The one he posted on Facebook®) (Fig. 41). He’s really happy
and impressed about his experience at the Diesel ’s shop .
81
Fig. 40 A 20% discount is automatically applied from the Cash register
82
Fig. 41 The video that Mark recorded during his leather jacket’s trial is displayed on the big size screen
CHAPTER 6. Conclusion
The usage of Digital Signage Networks is one of the hottest topics in the shop
experience. Statistics and growing industry investments support the
innovation of benefits related to their adoptions. Moreover, the cost reduction
of screens, interactive surfaces and NUI has encouraged the diffusion of this
interactive media
As we discussed in chapter 1, User Experience Design is mandatory for the
development of new softwares, hardwares and experiences in this current,
innovative and disruptive scenario. Furthermore, the adoption of Digital
Signage Networks is not optional in an integrated communication strategy of
modern brands (chapter 2 and 3).
TouchDomain, the software designed and developed by Practix, is trying to
“surf this wave of innovation”: on the one hand, by anticipating new trends like
the integration with social media channels such as Facebook®, on the other
hand, by improving the experiences previously designed by other firms.
83
TouchDomain aims at becoming a technology where contents are not
influenced by the software: the results should be a system able to adapt to any
kind of market, product and brand.
We tested TouchDomain by introducing it into fashion and automotive
industry contexts (fig. 42), but we are pretty comfortable in assuming that the
adoption in other fields would not imply any other obstacle.
We registered more than 1500 logins in the first month after the first
installation in a pretty small shop (about 140mq) located in the center of
Milan. Moreover, the “Average Interaction Time” was equal to 3:35 secs.
On the one hand, it should be considered that we are getting great results
from a market where many big players have a dominant role. On the other
84
Fig. 42 Touchdomain applied to an Automotive Scenario
hand, these results prove us that we can take advantage of the speed of a little
startup such as Practix.
In 2016 we will continue the design and iteration process started in 2015 in
order to release new brand features and to improve the old one.
85
86
Bibliography
Bettencourt, A., Gwinner, K. (1996), Customization of the Service Experience:
The Role of the Frontline Employee. Published in INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
OF SERVICE INDUSTRY MANAGEMENT 7(2):3-20 · MAY 1996, pp 1-2.
Kelway, J. (2012), Six Circles – An experience design framework [KINDLE
VERSION]. published in UX MAGAZINE, JANUARY 2012 pp 3.
Norman D., (1988), The Design of Everyday Things. New York, NY. published
by Basic Books.
Cooper, A. et al (2007), About Face: the essentials of interaction design. New
Jersey, NJ. Published by Wiley Publishing
Fagan, M.E. (1976), “Design and Code inspection”, published in IBM SYSTEMS
JOURNAL, VOL15, NO 3, 1976 pp 1-5;
Burke, R., (2009), “Behavioral Effects of Digital Signage”. Published in Journal
of Advertising Research, June 1, 2009.
87
Want, R. et al. (2012), Interactive Digital Signage. Published in Computer
(Volume:45 ,  Issue: 5 );
Lundstrøm, L., (2008), “Digital Signage Broadcasting: Content Management
and Distribution Techniques” London. Published by Focal Press; 1 edition
(January 17, 2008)
Zhang, Q. et al, (2010), “Cloud computing: state-of-the-art and research
challenges”, published in Journal of Internet Services and Applications
May 2010, Volume 1, Issue 1
Econsultancy, (2012), Multichannel Retail Report 2012. Retrieved on https://
econsultancy.com/reports/the-multichannel-retail-survey/
Ernst Haselsteiner et al. (2010), Security in Near Field Communication (NFC)
Strengths and Weaknesses. Retrieved on http://events.iaik.tugraz.at/
RFIDSec06/Program/papers/002%20-%20Security%20in%20NFC.pdf
"Project Natal" 101". Microsoft. June 1, 2009. Archived from the original on
June 1, 2009. Retrieved on http://blog.seattlepi.com/digitaljoystick/2009/06/01/
e3-2009-microsoft-at-e3-several-metric-tons-of-press-releaseapalloza/.
88
Resmini, A., Rosati L., (2011), Pervasive Information Architecture: Designing
Cross-Channel User Experiences. Published by Morgan Kaufmann Publishers;
Potente, D., Salving, E., (2009) Apple, Ikea and their integrated Information
Architecture. This article is based on the authors’ presentation at the European
IA Summit held in Amsterdam in September of 2008.
Ryan, N. S., et al (1998) Human-Computer giraffe interaction —- HCI in the
field - Workshop on Human-Compute interaction on mobile devices.
Retrieved on http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/johnson/papers/mobile/HCI1MD.html
Ravnik, R., Solina F. (2012) Audience Measurement of Digital Signage:
Quantitative Study in Real-World Environment Using Computer Vision,
Interact. Comput. (2013) 25 (3): 218-228.
Stewart, J., Bederson, B.B, and Druin, A. (1999). Single Display Groupware: A
Model for Co- present Collaboration. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference
on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) ‘99, pp. 286-293.
Stacey D. Scott, Karen D. Grant, Regan L. Mandryk (2003). System Guidelines
for Co-located, Collaborative Work on a Multitouch surfaces Display. ECSCW
2003 pp 159-178
89
90
Webliography
Norman, D. (1998) Whither "User Experience”?. Retrieved from http://
peterme.com/index112498.html
Williams, D. (2010), Arbitron Digital Place-Based Video Study 2010. Retrieved
on http://www.arbitron.com/downloads/2010_digital_video_display_study.pdf
Anderson C. (2015) 10 key stats accelerating digital signage adoption. Retrieved
on: http://www.digitalsignagetoday.com/blogs/10-key-stats-accelerating-
digital-signage-adoption/
Mcmullin J., Starmer, S., (2010) . Leaving Flatland: designing services and
systems across Channels. Retrieved on http://www.slideshare.net/jessmcmullin/
leaving-flatland-crosschannel-customer-experience-design
Itzkovitch (2012), Designing with sensors: Creating An Adaptive System To
Enhance UX. Retrieved on https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2012/12/
creating-an-adaptive-system-to-enhance-ux/
91
Bovet, C. (2015) Five reasons to integrate social media & digital signage.
Retrieved on http://www.sixteen-nine.net/2015/03/24/five-reasons-to-
integrate-social-media-digital-signage/
Nielsen Group, (2013) Under the influence: consumers trust on advertisement.
Retrieved on http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2013/under-the-
influence-consumer-trust-in-advertising.html
Ogilvy/Google/TNS, (2014) Consumer behavior comes under the spotlight in
new study. Retrieved on http://www.ogilvy.com/News/Press-Releases/
June-2014-Consumer-behavior-comes-under-the-spotlight-in-new-study.aspx
Prototyping. Definition available on http://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-
tools/methods/prototyping.html
92
Acknowledgements
First of all, this thesis is dedicated to my parents, for their unconditional
support, patience and love.
Secondly, this thesis could not exist without the collaboration with the whole
Practix Team (in particular Daniel and Agostino).
A special appreciation goes to my tutor, Professor Liliana Albertazzi, for the
time and passion spent reading and editing these pages.
Last but not least: a big thank you to Ilaria, Elena and Silvia for their patience
in revising my English.
93
94
95

More Related Content

Similar to Andolfatto Filippo Master Thesis - The modern store: usage of multimodal technologies for the improvement of the retail experience

Chapter 1 id2e_slides
Chapter 1 id2e_slidesChapter 1 id2e_slides
Chapter 1 id2e_slidesoopscrash1
 
What's the next big thing in user experience
What's the next big thing in user experienceWhat's the next big thing in user experience
What's the next big thing in user experience
Uxkick
 
UX Design Process - MIT ID Innovation
UX Design Process - MIT ID InnovationUX Design Process - MIT ID Innovation
UX Design Process - MIT ID Innovation
Pankaj Deshpande
 
Article on User Experience 2004
Article on User Experience 2004Article on User Experience 2004
Article on User Experience 2004Different
 
What Is Interaction Design
What Is Interaction DesignWhat Is Interaction Design
What Is Interaction DesignGraeme Smith
 
Importance of User Centric Design in Software Development Services.pdf
Importance of User Centric Design in Software Development Services.pdfImportance of User Centric Design in Software Development Services.pdf
Importance of User Centric Design in Software Development Services.pdf
Mverve1
 
Janet Lau's Portfolio
Janet Lau's PortfolioJanet Lau's Portfolio
Janet Lau's Portfolio
janetlau123
 
Product UI/UX : How a product takes shape
Product UI/UX : How a product takes shapeProduct UI/UX : How a product takes shape
Product UI/UX : How a product takes shape
Amanjot Malhotra
 
Ux design-fundamentals
Ux design-fundamentalsUx design-fundamentals
Ux design-fundamentals
Muhammad Ishfaq Ch ✔
 
What ux is
What ux isWhat ux is
What ux is
costanza mosi
 
User Experience Explained
User Experience ExplainedUser Experience Explained
User Experience Explained
Sameer dwivedi
 
Design Learnings
Design LearningsDesign Learnings
Design Learnings
Quikr
 
Human Computer Interaction (HCI)
Human Computer Interaction (HCI)Human Computer Interaction (HCI)
Human Computer Interaction (HCI)
Lahiru Danushka
 
UI DESIGN.pdf
UI DESIGN.pdfUI DESIGN.pdf
UI DESIGN.pdf
216310018
 
Unified user experience for toshiba products
Unified user experience for toshiba productsUnified user experience for toshiba products
Unified user experience for toshiba products
Flavio Fabiani
 
Introduction to Interaction Design.pptx
Introduction to Interaction Design.pptxIntroduction to Interaction Design.pptx
Introduction to Interaction Design.pptx
vaishalikhairnar4
 
Elements of User Experience - MIT ID Innovation
Elements of User Experience - MIT ID InnovationElements of User Experience - MIT ID Innovation
Elements of User Experience - MIT ID Innovation
Pankaj Deshpande
 
Road Map To Design Thinking
Road Map To Design ThinkingRoad Map To Design Thinking
Road Map To Design Thinkingkirsindia
 
Digital Prototyping Mastery Best Practices & Techniques.
Digital Prototyping Mastery Best Practices & Techniques.Digital Prototyping Mastery Best Practices & Techniques.
Digital Prototyping Mastery Best Practices & Techniques.
Cuneiform Consulting Pvt Ltd.
 

Similar to Andolfatto Filippo Master Thesis - The modern store: usage of multimodal technologies for the improvement of the retail experience (20)

Chapter 1 id2e_slides
Chapter 1 id2e_slidesChapter 1 id2e_slides
Chapter 1 id2e_slides
 
What's the next big thing in user experience
What's the next big thing in user experienceWhat's the next big thing in user experience
What's the next big thing in user experience
 
UX Design Process - MIT ID Innovation
UX Design Process - MIT ID InnovationUX Design Process - MIT ID Innovation
UX Design Process - MIT ID Innovation
 
Article on User Experience 2004
Article on User Experience 2004Article on User Experience 2004
Article on User Experience 2004
 
What Is Interaction Design
What Is Interaction DesignWhat Is Interaction Design
What Is Interaction Design
 
Importance of User Centric Design in Software Development Services.pdf
Importance of User Centric Design in Software Development Services.pdfImportance of User Centric Design in Software Development Services.pdf
Importance of User Centric Design in Software Development Services.pdf
 
Janet Lau's Portfolio
Janet Lau's PortfolioJanet Lau's Portfolio
Janet Lau's Portfolio
 
UI/UX Design
UI/UX DesignUI/UX Design
UI/UX Design
 
Product UI/UX : How a product takes shape
Product UI/UX : How a product takes shapeProduct UI/UX : How a product takes shape
Product UI/UX : How a product takes shape
 
Ux design-fundamentals
Ux design-fundamentalsUx design-fundamentals
Ux design-fundamentals
 
What ux is
What ux isWhat ux is
What ux is
 
User Experience Explained
User Experience ExplainedUser Experience Explained
User Experience Explained
 
Design Learnings
Design LearningsDesign Learnings
Design Learnings
 
Human Computer Interaction (HCI)
Human Computer Interaction (HCI)Human Computer Interaction (HCI)
Human Computer Interaction (HCI)
 
UI DESIGN.pdf
UI DESIGN.pdfUI DESIGN.pdf
UI DESIGN.pdf
 
Unified user experience for toshiba products
Unified user experience for toshiba productsUnified user experience for toshiba products
Unified user experience for toshiba products
 
Introduction to Interaction Design.pptx
Introduction to Interaction Design.pptxIntroduction to Interaction Design.pptx
Introduction to Interaction Design.pptx
 
Elements of User Experience - MIT ID Innovation
Elements of User Experience - MIT ID InnovationElements of User Experience - MIT ID Innovation
Elements of User Experience - MIT ID Innovation
 
Road Map To Design Thinking
Road Map To Design ThinkingRoad Map To Design Thinking
Road Map To Design Thinking
 
Digital Prototyping Mastery Best Practices & Techniques.
Digital Prototyping Mastery Best Practices & Techniques.Digital Prototyping Mastery Best Practices & Techniques.
Digital Prototyping Mastery Best Practices & Techniques.
 

Recently uploaded

一比一原版(NCL毕业证书)纽卡斯尔大学毕业证成绩单如何办理
一比一原版(NCL毕业证书)纽卡斯尔大学毕业证成绩单如何办理一比一原版(NCL毕业证书)纽卡斯尔大学毕业证成绩单如何办理
一比一原版(NCL毕业证书)纽卡斯尔大学毕业证成绩单如何办理
7sd8fier
 
Design Thinking Design thinking Design thinking
Design Thinking Design thinking Design thinkingDesign Thinking Design thinking Design thinking
Design Thinking Design thinking Design thinking
cy0krjxt
 
一比一原版(Bristol毕业证书)布里斯托大学毕业证成绩单如何办理
一比一原版(Bristol毕业证书)布里斯托大学毕业证成绩单如何办理一比一原版(Bristol毕业证书)布里斯托大学毕业证成绩单如何办理
一比一原版(Bristol毕业证书)布里斯托大学毕业证成绩单如何办理
smpc3nvg
 
Between Filth and Fortune- Urban Cattle Foraging Realities by Devi S Nair, An...
Between Filth and Fortune- Urban Cattle Foraging Realities by Devi S Nair, An...Between Filth and Fortune- Urban Cattle Foraging Realities by Devi S Nair, An...
Between Filth and Fortune- Urban Cattle Foraging Realities by Devi S Nair, An...
Mansi Shah
 
Borys Sutkowski portfolio interior design
Borys Sutkowski portfolio interior designBorys Sutkowski portfolio interior design
Borys Sutkowski portfolio interior design
boryssutkowski
 
一比一原版(LSE毕业证书)伦敦政治经济学院毕业证成绩单如何办理
一比一原版(LSE毕业证书)伦敦政治经济学院毕业证成绩单如何办理一比一原版(LSE毕业证书)伦敦政治经济学院毕业证成绩单如何办理
一比一原版(LSE毕业证书)伦敦政治经济学院毕业证成绩单如何办理
jyz59f4j
 
Top Israeli Products and Brands - Plan it israel.pdf
Top Israeli Products and Brands - Plan it israel.pdfTop Israeli Products and Brands - Plan it israel.pdf
Top Israeli Products and Brands - Plan it israel.pdf
PlanitIsrael
 
一比一原版(UCB毕业证书)伯明翰大学学院毕业证成绩单如何办理
一比一原版(UCB毕业证书)伯明翰大学学院毕业证成绩单如何办理一比一原版(UCB毕业证书)伯明翰大学学院毕业证成绩单如何办理
一比一原版(UCB毕业证书)伯明翰大学学院毕业证成绩单如何办理
h7j5io0
 
Portfolio.pdf
Portfolio.pdfPortfolio.pdf
Portfolio.pdf
garcese
 
一比一原版(RHUL毕业证书)伦敦大学皇家霍洛威学院毕业证如何办理
一比一原版(RHUL毕业证书)伦敦大学皇家霍洛威学院毕业证如何办理一比一原版(RHUL毕业证书)伦敦大学皇家霍洛威学院毕业证如何办理
一比一原版(RHUL毕业证书)伦敦大学皇家霍洛威学院毕业证如何办理
9a93xvy
 
White wonder, Work developed by Eva Tschopp
White wonder, Work developed by Eva TschoppWhite wonder, Work developed by Eva Tschopp
White wonder, Work developed by Eva Tschopp
Mansi Shah
 
National-Learning-Camp 2024 deped....pptx
National-Learning-Camp 2024 deped....pptxNational-Learning-Camp 2024 deped....pptx
National-Learning-Camp 2024 deped....pptx
AlecAnidul
 
CA OFFICE office office office _VIEWS.pdf
CA OFFICE office office office _VIEWS.pdfCA OFFICE office office office _VIEWS.pdf
CA OFFICE office office office _VIEWS.pdf
SudhanshuMandlik
 
Top 5 Indian Style Modular Kitchen Designs
Top 5 Indian Style Modular Kitchen DesignsTop 5 Indian Style Modular Kitchen Designs
Top 5 Indian Style Modular Kitchen Designs
Finzo Kitchens
 
Research 20 slides Amelia gavryliuks.pdf
Research 20 slides Amelia gavryliuks.pdfResearch 20 slides Amelia gavryliuks.pdf
Research 20 slides Amelia gavryliuks.pdf
ameli25062005
 
一比一原版(BU毕业证书)伯恩茅斯大学毕业证成绩单如何办理
一比一原版(BU毕业证书)伯恩茅斯大学毕业证成绩单如何办理一比一原版(BU毕业证书)伯恩茅斯大学毕业证成绩单如何办理
一比一原版(BU毕业证书)伯恩茅斯大学毕业证成绩单如何办理
h7j5io0
 
Design Thinking Design thinking Design thinking
Design Thinking Design thinking Design thinkingDesign Thinking Design thinking Design thinking
Design Thinking Design thinking Design thinking
cy0krjxt
 
Common Designing Mistakes and How to avoid them
Common Designing Mistakes and How to avoid themCommon Designing Mistakes and How to avoid them
Common Designing Mistakes and How to avoid them
madhavlakhanpal29
 
Can AI do good? at 'offtheCanvas' India HCI prelude
Can AI do good? at 'offtheCanvas' India HCI preludeCan AI do good? at 'offtheCanvas' India HCI prelude
Can AI do good? at 'offtheCanvas' India HCI prelude
Alan Dix
 
20 slides of research movie and artists .pdf
20 slides of research movie and artists .pdf20 slides of research movie and artists .pdf
20 slides of research movie and artists .pdf
ameli25062005
 

Recently uploaded (20)

一比一原版(NCL毕业证书)纽卡斯尔大学毕业证成绩单如何办理
一比一原版(NCL毕业证书)纽卡斯尔大学毕业证成绩单如何办理一比一原版(NCL毕业证书)纽卡斯尔大学毕业证成绩单如何办理
一比一原版(NCL毕业证书)纽卡斯尔大学毕业证成绩单如何办理
 
Design Thinking Design thinking Design thinking
Design Thinking Design thinking Design thinkingDesign Thinking Design thinking Design thinking
Design Thinking Design thinking Design thinking
 
一比一原版(Bristol毕业证书)布里斯托大学毕业证成绩单如何办理
一比一原版(Bristol毕业证书)布里斯托大学毕业证成绩单如何办理一比一原版(Bristol毕业证书)布里斯托大学毕业证成绩单如何办理
一比一原版(Bristol毕业证书)布里斯托大学毕业证成绩单如何办理
 
Between Filth and Fortune- Urban Cattle Foraging Realities by Devi S Nair, An...
Between Filth and Fortune- Urban Cattle Foraging Realities by Devi S Nair, An...Between Filth and Fortune- Urban Cattle Foraging Realities by Devi S Nair, An...
Between Filth and Fortune- Urban Cattle Foraging Realities by Devi S Nair, An...
 
Borys Sutkowski portfolio interior design
Borys Sutkowski portfolio interior designBorys Sutkowski portfolio interior design
Borys Sutkowski portfolio interior design
 
一比一原版(LSE毕业证书)伦敦政治经济学院毕业证成绩单如何办理
一比一原版(LSE毕业证书)伦敦政治经济学院毕业证成绩单如何办理一比一原版(LSE毕业证书)伦敦政治经济学院毕业证成绩单如何办理
一比一原版(LSE毕业证书)伦敦政治经济学院毕业证成绩单如何办理
 
Top Israeli Products and Brands - Plan it israel.pdf
Top Israeli Products and Brands - Plan it israel.pdfTop Israeli Products and Brands - Plan it israel.pdf
Top Israeli Products and Brands - Plan it israel.pdf
 
一比一原版(UCB毕业证书)伯明翰大学学院毕业证成绩单如何办理
一比一原版(UCB毕业证书)伯明翰大学学院毕业证成绩单如何办理一比一原版(UCB毕业证书)伯明翰大学学院毕业证成绩单如何办理
一比一原版(UCB毕业证书)伯明翰大学学院毕业证成绩单如何办理
 
Portfolio.pdf
Portfolio.pdfPortfolio.pdf
Portfolio.pdf
 
一比一原版(RHUL毕业证书)伦敦大学皇家霍洛威学院毕业证如何办理
一比一原版(RHUL毕业证书)伦敦大学皇家霍洛威学院毕业证如何办理一比一原版(RHUL毕业证书)伦敦大学皇家霍洛威学院毕业证如何办理
一比一原版(RHUL毕业证书)伦敦大学皇家霍洛威学院毕业证如何办理
 
White wonder, Work developed by Eva Tschopp
White wonder, Work developed by Eva TschoppWhite wonder, Work developed by Eva Tschopp
White wonder, Work developed by Eva Tschopp
 
National-Learning-Camp 2024 deped....pptx
National-Learning-Camp 2024 deped....pptxNational-Learning-Camp 2024 deped....pptx
National-Learning-Camp 2024 deped....pptx
 
CA OFFICE office office office _VIEWS.pdf
CA OFFICE office office office _VIEWS.pdfCA OFFICE office office office _VIEWS.pdf
CA OFFICE office office office _VIEWS.pdf
 
Top 5 Indian Style Modular Kitchen Designs
Top 5 Indian Style Modular Kitchen DesignsTop 5 Indian Style Modular Kitchen Designs
Top 5 Indian Style Modular Kitchen Designs
 
Research 20 slides Amelia gavryliuks.pdf
Research 20 slides Amelia gavryliuks.pdfResearch 20 slides Amelia gavryliuks.pdf
Research 20 slides Amelia gavryliuks.pdf
 
一比一原版(BU毕业证书)伯恩茅斯大学毕业证成绩单如何办理
一比一原版(BU毕业证书)伯恩茅斯大学毕业证成绩单如何办理一比一原版(BU毕业证书)伯恩茅斯大学毕业证成绩单如何办理
一比一原版(BU毕业证书)伯恩茅斯大学毕业证成绩单如何办理
 
Design Thinking Design thinking Design thinking
Design Thinking Design thinking Design thinkingDesign Thinking Design thinking Design thinking
Design Thinking Design thinking Design thinking
 
Common Designing Mistakes and How to avoid them
Common Designing Mistakes and How to avoid themCommon Designing Mistakes and How to avoid them
Common Designing Mistakes and How to avoid them
 
Can AI do good? at 'offtheCanvas' India HCI prelude
Can AI do good? at 'offtheCanvas' India HCI preludeCan AI do good? at 'offtheCanvas' India HCI prelude
Can AI do good? at 'offtheCanvas' India HCI prelude
 
20 slides of research movie and artists .pdf
20 slides of research movie and artists .pdf20 slides of research movie and artists .pdf
20 slides of research movie and artists .pdf
 

Andolfatto Filippo Master Thesis - The modern store: usage of multimodal technologies for the improvement of the retail experience

  • 1. Master’s Degree in Cognitive Science The modern store: usage of multimodal technologies for the improvement of the retail experience Tutor Student Professor Liliana Albertazzi Filippo Andolfatto
  • 2. 2
  • 3. Master’s Degree in Cognitive Science 1 INTRODUCTION 5 CHAPTER 1. User Experience Design: definition and principles 9 1.1 Definitions of User Experience Design 9 1.2 The Six principles of User Centered Design 11 1.3 Conclusions 14 CHAPTER 2. Digital Signage Networks 15 2.1 What’s a Digital Signage in Deep 17 2.2 Why adopting Digital Signage 20 2.3 Fields of application of Digital Signage 21 2.5 State of the art of Digital Signage 22 2.4 Conclusion 33 CHAPTER 3. Digital Signage Networks: New Trends 35 3.1 Digital Signage networks as element of a holistic retail experience: online and offline become similar and indistinguishable 36 3.2 Multimodality of the interaction/experience 38 3.3 Adaptability of the experience and the understanding of context 40 3.4 Integration of sensors and software logs in an analytics framework 42 3.6 Social Media integration on the digital signage network 43 3.7 Conclusion 45 CHAPTER 4. TouchDomain - The design process of a complex Digital Signage Network 47 4.1 The Design process 48 4.2 Principal Milestones 50 CHAPTER 5. Usage of TouchDomain in a fashion store 65 5.1 TouchDomain in a Fashion Shop Scenario: the user journey 66 5.2 The Social Login as a key for the store 67 5.3 Gaming & Exploration 70 5.4 Chill-outing & Purchase 79 CHAPTER 6. Conclusion 83 3
  • 5. INTRODUCTION In the last decade, the rise of the internet, the development of social media networks and the advent of smartphones have changed our way of buying and dealing with brands. Nowadays, we can buy our favourite trousers just with a few taps on the phone on our way to work, share our purchases on our social media channels before and after shopping to estimate our “likeability” and so on. In this complex scenario made of several “online factors & variable”, local and real stores keep on playing a relevant role in the battle among brands for the conquer (and understanding) of customers. Apple®, with its own stores around the world is an example of how physical stores are part of the brand strategy and philosophy that other competitors cannot ignore. There are several rising trends that are affecting the in-store retail experience: • Brands (especially high-end brand) are trying to break down the walls between online stores and physical ones in order to achieve a stronger and seamless brand reputation; •   Brands are trying to reach a better knowledge of the complex buyer personas (customer’s categories) thanks to algorithms that analyze user 5
  • 6. preferences’ traced through social media channels, online stores, search engines and finally real stores; • Retail experience, as well as Online-Experience is moving in the direction of adaptability based on those customer needs that could arise during the buying process. According to Bettercout and Gwinner [1996] customizing the delivery of service on the frontline is a key to customer satisfaction. For example, a woman that has just bought a pair of jeans could be interested in buying a t-shirt. In an e-commerce scenario (think of Amazon) these kind of interactions with the customer occur regularly, whereas in an off- line store this is still a developing trend that every brand is trying to follow in several ways, using different technologies. In this context, Practix, a software company based in Rovereto (TN) specialized in the design and development of software for multitouch screen is crafting TouchDomain (www.TouchDomain.it), a cloud-based CMS (Content Management System) which can manage multimedia contents such as videos, photos, presentations, pdf files, web pages etc. and can display them on big interactive screens. Subsequently, thanks to a complex analytical framework, the store manager and the store team would be able to find out selling trends based on user interactions. 6
  • 7. I started to collaborate with Practix in January 2015 when I took part in the design of the product working as UX Designer. In the last year have been working hard on this product using several design techniques that helped us to understand the customer and final user needs and to create a product that people use. The whole overview on the development processes listed explained before gave me a clear idea of different problems involved in this kind of modern and innovative product development and this thesis aims to summarizing them. 7
  • 8. 8
  • 9. CHAPTER 1. User Experience Design: definition and principles Experience is a human condition, a mixture of memory & cognitive processes. Experience differs for every person. According to Kelway [2012], this complexity has led us to a place where a design discipline can grow and justify its existence due to the importance of the quality of experiences that people (customers, users or patients) can feel whilst using or interacting with ”digital” products [Kelway 2012]. 1.1 Definitions of User Experience Design The term User Experience Design (Shortly UX Design) was coined in the mid-90s by Donald Norman, co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group, professor at KAIST (Korea), IDEO fellow, and a design theorist, studying the fundamentals of modern design. As he admitted, he created this expression giving that human interface and usability were too narrow [Norman 1998]. The author wanted to cover all aspects of the person’s experience with the system 9
  • 10. including industrial design, graphics, the interface, the physical interaction, and the manual [Norman 1988]. User Experience Design was defined always by Norman as a discipline based on the needs and interests of the user, with an emphasis on making products usable and understandable [Norman 1988]. Customers and their own needs must dominate over the interface design and they got to be interrogated at any step of the development process [Norman 1988]. Alan Cooper, gave his own interpretation of Experience Design in the field of digital products. He defined it as the orchestration of a number of design disciplines (Cooper et al. 2007) (see Figure 1). Fig.1 Diagram shows user experience design (UX) of digital products as consisting of three overlapping concerns: form, behavior, and content. 10
  • 11. 1.2 The Six principles of User Centered Design ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) is a worldwide federation that works in order to prepare International Standards defined as ISO 9241-210:2010: a set of rules. It provides requirements and recommendations for human-centred design principles and activities throughout the life cycle of computer-based interactive systems. It is intended to be used by those managing design processes, and is concerned with ways in which both hardware and software components of interactive systems can enhance human– system interaction (ISO 9241-210 2010). In the same document they explain the six principles that define a user centered design process: 1. The design is based upon an explicit understanding of users, tasks and environment: In every step of the design and development processes the team should understand these three variable in order to design a product properly. For example, the requirements and user needs that distinguish an interface for listening to music in mobility such as a mp3 player, could not coincide with the CAD-Software ones. (See Table. 1); 11
  • 12. Table 1: example of different users, needs and environments for different interfaces 2. Users are involved throughout design and development: People that got influence over a product (stakeholders, users, project team etc.) should be involved in all the project steps. Co-Design methods, are considered particularly valuable for eliciting ethical, legal, and social issues that would otherwise go unconsidered (Petersen et al. 2015); 3. The design is driven and refined by user-centred evaluation: Usability testing is a collection of techniques used to measure characteristics of a user’s interaction with a product, usually with the goal of assessing the usability of that product [Cooper et al. 2007]. Every issue, concern, and error entirely resolved at this level […] can be 10 to 100 times more expensive to fix if found later in the process [Fagan 1976]; mp3 Player CAD Software Users Teenagers, Trekking lovers, people on the move Architects, Designers, Engineers… Needs Listening to music in mobility Design, sharing drawing with customers, exploring new solutions Environments Outdoor Office 12
  • 13. 4. The process is iterative: The standard defines this principle without any ambiguity: a good product cannot be designed properly without iterations. Every product needs several rounds of design and user evaluation tests to improve both its User Experience and code quality. 5. The Design addresses the whole user experience Figure 2 shows how the entire user experience is based on several factors as usability, desirability, brand experience etc. perceived by the customer during the interaction with the product. fig.2 Picture that represents the “whole User Experience” 13 USEFULNESSUX USEFULNESS USABILITY DESIRABILITY BRAND EXPERIENCE is easy to use its aesthetics is amazing I got a good brand perception
  • 14. 6. The Design team includes multidisciplinary skills and perspectives: In the vast majority of teams collaboration represents a company activity that happen between people with similar skill sets. This behaviour do not help them nor in the error neither in the solution research. Creating heterogeneous teams with higher collaboration levels is mandatory to avoid previously described problems. 1.3 Conclusions In this chapter we discussed what does User Experience Design means and how it works. In the next one we will deepen the concept of Digital Signage networks, exploring why they are important and showing also some market statistics. At last we will list and analyze the state of the art of Digital Signage Technologies. 14
  • 15. CHAPTER 2. Digital Signage Networks TouchDomain is a platform that can be associated to the concept of Digital Signage or Digital Signage Networks, an important new channel for communicating with consumers in retail shopping environments [Burke 2009]. Signs are becoming ubiquitous, in part because LCD displays have decreased in cost more than tenfold over the past decade. LCD based digital signages are appearing worldwide and digital menu boards are replacing static backlit menus in fast-food restaurants. These dynamic wall and overhead displays can change throughout the day, promoting different items for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. […] In retail outlets, point-of-sale digital signs have proven effective in driving sales, and malls and shopping centers now regularly use them for interactive directory services [Want et al. 2012]. Several studies have proved that the benefits of the adoption of a digital signage network include an increased product knowledge and brand awareness among the consumers and the ability to influence customer behavior, with a consequent potential increase in sales.. 15
  • 16. From Arbitron Digital Place-Based Video Study 2010 [Williams 2010], a research which goal is to set universe estimates for digital place-based video by benchmarking the size and profile of total viewers across the United States we extracted the data contained in table 2 here below: table 2. Data from Arbitron Digital Place-Based Video Study 2010 The first aim of this chapter is to analyze what a Digital Signage Network is and to describe its technological elements. Then, we will go through some statistics in order to understand the business importance of its adoption. Finally, we will list and index the state of the art in the field of Digital Signage Reach The availability of digital place-based video has reached a critical mass. 70% of U.S. residents aged 12 or older have seen a digital video display in a public venue in the past month; 52% recall seeing one in the past week. Comparison to Other Media Digital video in public venues reaches more Americans each month (70%) than video over the Internet (43%) or Facebook (41%). Top Venues for Overall Viewers The top Live places to reach consumers with digital video are grocery stores (28% of the U.S. population aged 12 or older), shopping malls (27%), large retail or department stores (20%), medical ofLices (20%) and movie theaters (19%). Advertising Engagement Viewers are engaged with the content; nearly half (47%) of those who have seen a digital place-based video in the past month speciLically recall seeing an ad. Effect on Purchase Patterns Digital video ads have an effect on purchase patterns. Nearly one in Live (19%) of those who have seen a digital video ad say they have made an unplanned purchase after seeing an item featured on the screen. 16
  • 17. in terms of technology and Human Computer Interaction to give a clear and exhaustive overview of the topic. 2.1 What’s a Digital Signage in Deep The Digital Signage is based on various methods of using computers and TV Screens (as well as other kind of technologies) that are as efficient as possible in business and interaction terms. For the companies it represents a brand new way of communicating, informing, engaging and interacting with a wide range of people with different needs. The content is rapidly updated, tested and changed thanks to the adoption of cloud and other distributed technologies. However, in these modern digital signage systems content files and data streams are not enough. Information and instructions are needed to control how, where and when the content files and streams are displayed in screens. This control information is stored in scheduling and playlist files [Lundstrøm 2008] or in the most advanced networks it is gathered live from the environment as the customers interacts with the system and their needs are predicted. 17
  • 18. We can divide the modern digital signage system into three main technological parts that are equally important: - The management side: used to manage the contents, the scheduling files and other routines performed by the digital signage owner (intended as team). This part of the system is usually called CMS (Content Management System) and it’s a web application invisible to final users. - The cloud: cloud computing has recently emerged as a new paradigm for hosting and delivering services over the Internet [Zhang et al, 2010]. We will consider the cloud as the link between the management side and the client side of the digital signage system, through which contents and controls are transmitted to screens or other devices. - The client side: is the terminal part of the network composed by screens, sensors and any other device meant to transfer information to the user. At this point, the connection between the management and client side through the cloud seems to be unidirectional. Conversely, we will notice in the next chapters how important analytics are in terms of “brand-customer understanding”. Users’ Usage data gathered via sensors and software’s logs are communicated from the client side to the management side. They are stored and automatically inspected, cleaned, transformed and modeled by 18
  • 19. the management server with the goal of discovering useful information, suggesting conclusions, and supporting decision-making .1 Actually we can consider a Digital Signage Network as a bidirectional system. Figure 3 represents its main components. fig.3 Bidirectional representation of a Digital Signage Network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_analysis1 19
  • 20. 2.2 Why adopting Digital Signage “Digital Signage is becoming a reputable marketing resource as technology advances continue to improve capabilities. Despite businesses in the past being hesitant to incorporate signage into their marketing strategy, forward-thinking corporates are now seizing the opportunity to attract attention, leverage up-sells and influence purchase decisions.” - [Anderson 2009] In this section we will explain and understand why the Digital Signage is becoming an important topic in terms of business for bigger and smaller brands: 1. More than 25% of organizations deems "multichannel campaign management" to be one of their highest priorities and Digital Signage is part of this strategy: Multichannel Retail Report 2012 published by Consultancy on September, 2012 is based on a survey of 1,000 consumers in the UK and 1,000 consumers in the US. It underlines how the vast majority of UK consumers see the ability to purchase from a retailer from different channels as important (Multichannel Retail Report 2012). Digital Signage networks are considered an integral part of this strategy. 2. 63% of people report that Digital Signage attracts their attention: Implementing a digital signage system offers a lot of opportunities for organizations to promote their latest products and services thanks to the customer’s attention that a screen is able to attract; 20
  • 21. 3. Higher recall rate: “[..] digital signage has a recall rate higher than any other form of traditional media with 83% of people recalling at least one ad seen on a digital billboard in the past 30 days.” [Williams 2010] 4. Digital Signage reaches the public: According to Williams [2010] 70% of US residents aged 12 or older have seen a digital video display in a public venue in the past month […]. Public venues currently displaying OOH digital signage include health clubs, shopping malls, medical offices, restaurants, bars, coffee houses, movie theaters, and large retailer/ department stores. 5. Digital signage increase overall sales volume by 31.8%: Digital Signage creates an immersive and integrated in-store experience, maximizing cross-sells, upsells and impulse purchases by quickly adapting and deploying content in real time. 2.3 Fields of application of Digital Signage We could identify the the three main fields of application of Digital Signage Networks as: 21
  • 22. • Informative: used to communicate timetables, waiting time, weather information, maps and directions; • Educative and formative: used as interactive and supporting tool during lessons of any topic and level. Applied also on continuing education courses. • Persuasive: Applied to marketing campaigns with ad-hoc promotional messages, Digital Signage Networks are able to direct customers toward specific areas, to increase the duration of their visit and finally to improve sales rate. 2.5 State of the art of Digital Signage As we mentioned in 2.2, Digital Signage could be applied on various technologies: in this section we will introduce some examples of representative technologies applied to Digital Signage field that we could consider as the state-of-the-art intended as the highest level of general development, as of a device, technique, or scientific field achieved at a particular time - Wikipedia 22
  • 23. 1- NG CONNECT (1): What it is: Interactive Kiosk with a persuasive goal. How it works: On the top of the screen it displays the name of the shopping center and the weather info. The central part is sub-divided into two main areas. As we could observe in the picture beside, in the first area (ADS AREA) customers will usually see advertisement. In the second one discounts would be continuously updated during the day. The Customer is able to save discounts by leaning- on a smartphone on a specific NFC-area of the kiosk. According to E. Haselsteiner et al [2010] Near Field Communication (NFC) technology is a wireless communication interface with a working distance limited to about 10 cm that enable the communication of data between two different devices [Haselsteiner et al 2010]. 23 Shopping Center name 10:00 ADS AREA Discounts NFC AREA Fig. 4 Wireframe that represents the NG-CONNECT persuasive interface
  • 24. 2- NG CONNECT (2): What it is: Interactive Kiosk with an informative goal. How it works: On the top of the screen the name of the store is displayed. The central part is sub-divided into two main areas. As in NG CONNECT 1, in the first area customers will usually see advertisement one dedicated to advertisement. whereas in the second one NFC sensors enable customers to display information about products swiped on the NFC area 24 STORE NAME 10:00 ADS AREA NFC AREA INFO 1 INFO 2 INFO3 INFO 4 __________________ PRICE: 2,00€ BOTTLE INFO STORE NAME 10:00 ADS AREA NFC AREA INFO 1 INFO 2 INFO3 INFO 4 __________________ PRICE: 2,00€ BOTTLE INFO DETAIL Fig. 5 Wireframe that represents the NG-CONNECT informative interface
  • 25. 3- PATRIZIA PEPE’s INTERACTIVE EXPERIENCE: What it is: Interactive Kiosk with both informative and persuasive goals. How it works: Thanks to the adoption of RFID (Radio-frequency identification) readers and tags applied to clothes and shoes the user is able to gather more information about clothing items that she would like to buy. Radio-frequency identification technology uses electromagnetic fields to automatically identify and track tags attached to objects, which contain electronically stored information such as sizes, available colours and more. In stand-by mode the screen displays images and videos about fashion shows and clothing collections (fig. 6). At the same time the screen presents a call- to-action button that invites users to interact with the device. As the interaction starts, (fig 6-7), the interface layout changes: three main areas are shown: - Top: fashion show videos, which are related to the chosen article, are displayed; - Central: the article is displayed with different perspectives; - Bottom: other articles of the same clothing collection are shown; 25
  • 26. 26 FULL SCREEN ADVERTISEMENT FASHION SHOW VIDEO CALL TO ACTION INACTIVE ACTIVE FASHION SHOW VIDEO Fig. 6 Wireframe that represents the PATRIZIA PEPE kiosk Fig. 7 Wireframe that represents contents displayed on an active PATRIZIA PEPE kiosk
  • 27. 4- LG’s Digital Signage solution for automotive: What it is: Interactive Kiosk with an informative/persuasive goal How it works: The kiosk enable customers to: select the model of car they are interested in, discover more info about it and make an interactive 3D virtual tour inside and outside of the car (fig. 8). 27 BRAND LOGO BRAND LOGO Fig. 8 Wireframe that represents contents displayed on an active LG’s Digital Signage Network
  • 28. 5- FabbricaDigitale EXPO 2015: What it is: Interactive Totem with an informative goal. It was installed in Milan during the EXPO Exhibition in 2015. How it works: The kiosk is composed of two different screens with two different scopes: The upper screen is used firstly to display ads and informative messages. The position helps to reach a wider public with important information. The screen on the bottom displays a map with two different view’s options: - “Services around you”: next POI (Point of interest) are highlighted; - “Explore EXPO”: it’s a path-finder that helps visitors to get to a POI or a Pavillion inside the exhibition; 28
  • 29. 29 advertisement way-finder Fig. 9 Wireframe that represents the setup of screens at EXPO 2015
  • 30. 6- Topshop’s magic mirror: What it is: A mirror that uses 3d mapping techniques to display “digital clothes” as an overlay on the customer’s real-time video. How it works: On January 2010, 3D mapping appeared in our living room thanks to Microsoft Kinect®, a line of motion sensing input devices by Microsoft for Xbox 360 and Xbox One video game consoles and Windows PCs. Based around a webcam-style add-on peripheral, it enable users to control and interact with their console/computer without the need for a game controller, through a natural user interface using gestures and spoken commands (Microsoft , 2009). In less than two years this technology had a great success and it has been “adopted” and installed inside stores and commercial centers. Top Shop’s Magic Mirror allows customers to virtually try on different clothing articles and accessories: customers have the chance to preview products without trying them physically on. Kinect creates a 3D map of the shopper (fig 10), then it adds an overlay over the video acquired with the camera. The results is a 3D-projection of a t-shirt (as in Fig. 10) on the customer’s body (Fig.11). 30
  • 31. 31 Microsoft Kinect sensor Shopper 3D Overlay Fig. 10 Example of image acquisition with Microsoft Kinect
  • 32. 32 fig.11 Representation of the Virtual T-Shirt projected over a video of the body of the customer
  • 33. 2.4 Conclusion In this chapter we introduced several examples of Digital Signage Networks, in order to try to show in how many fields this technology can be applied, with different purposes and “way of interact with”. We will now concentrate on the new trends that Digital Signage technology is experiencing 33
  • 34. 34
  • 35. CHAPTER 3. Digital Signage Networks: New Trends There are at least four brand new trends that arise from the world of research and business about the future of Digital Signage Networks inside stores: • Digital Signage networks as element of a holistic retail experience where online and offline stores become similar, complementary and indistinguishable; • Multimodality of the experience • Adaptability of the experience; • Integration of sensors in an analytics framework; • Social Media We will analyze them in this chapter in order to give a strong background of the future of digital signage technologies. 35
  • 36. 3.1 Digital Signage networks as element of a holistic retail experience: online and offline become similar and indistinguishable The customer is interacting with (the) brand… they don’t care about the channel. I’m the same customer in each interaction; the whole of the experience should be greater than the sum of its parts [Mcmullin and Starmer 2010]. Our day-to-day activities are changing, they are becoming cross-channel experiences that require us not only to move from medium to medium, from device to device, but across domains [Resmini and Rosati 2011]. The digital purchasing process could start digital with an online ads banner informing us that there’s a new product, ending up in the physical shop, picking the product at the retail store and viceversa. The distance between our digital and real life decreased enormously in the last decade. In the United States, 53% of consumers reportedly buy products off- line after they research them online, whereas another 43% start their research online, either at their desktop computer or through a mobile device, but then find themselves in need to call a customer service number or speak with a human operator to complete the transaction, usually because they cannot find the information they are looking online [Mcmullin and Starmer 2010]. This constant shifting, this moving back and forth between what is digital and what is 36
  • 37. physical turns every communication into a cross-channel communication and pushes customers toward a holistic and ubiquitous approach to products and services [Resmini and Rosati 2011]. Again, Resmini and Rosati [2011] argue that we should think about an emergent information-based system where old and new media and physical and digital environments are designed, delivered, and experienced as a whole [Resmini and Rosati 2011]. Two Italian information architects, Davide Potente and Erika Salving [2009] found out that “a close analysis of the Apple website and, in particular, the Apple Retail 37 Fig. 12 Map of correspondences between Apple website taxonomy and products’ placement inside the Apple Retail Store
  • 38. Store highlights the role of information architecture in building bridge experiences (fig. 12). Information Architecture can cross various contexts of experience with the objective of defining a unique human- information interaction model by means of proper organization of information flows and tasks (Potente, Salving 2009). Again, the online experience and the store layout, combined with technologies installed inside it, share a common information organization and their differences should be relegated to obvious and necessary characteristics of the interface. We should take this consideration into account when designing a modern information system such as a digital signage network. 3.2 Multimodality of the interaction/experience In the first decade of 21st century, digital signage networks were merely a TV network able to broadcast only advertising content used in substitution of printed advertisement. Users were “passive audiences” in a world where the number of tv-screens installed in public spaces as squares, stores and commercial centers able to attract their attention were increasing day by day. 38
  • 39. The need for a useful, interactive and immersive experience arose with the advent of vertical and horizontal touchscreen, mobile devices, NUIs (Natural User Interfaces) such as Microsoft Kinect® and 2D and 3D projector. Some interactive displays allow users to navigate the content by pressing buttons located nearby. The use of the touchscreen experienced a resurgence in popularity in the past five years as a result of the success of mobile devices that use this interactive interface, namely, the iPhone and Android smartphones, as well as the increasingly popular tablet computers and e-book readers. An interesting consequence of this popularity is that people who see non-interactive digital signage are touching the screens and expecting a reaction. Even for signs that have a traditional touch capability, users are likely to try using multitouch gestures to zoom in and out on the display [Want et al. 2012]. NUIs and cam-based systems are interfaces that use camera or 3D mapping technology to track users movements and using motion-tracing information to control the interface. This creates immersive experiences such as Topshop’s magic mirror (see chapter 2). Mobile devices often become an integral part of the user experience with a digital signage network. They could be used as controller, to store information with a quick data-transmission via NFC or WI-FI networks between the kiosk and the personal device. Furthermore there are innovative ways to use mobile 39
  • 40. devices as keys to have access to social profile credentials without typing any password or other sensible data on a big screen placed in a public space. 3.3 Adaptability of the experience and the understanding of context In computer science, the term adaptive system that are context-aware refers to a process in which an interactive system adapts its behavior to individual users based on information acquired about its user(s), the context of use and its environment. Although adaptive systems have been long-discussed in academia and have been an aspiration for computer scientists and researchers [Itzkovitch 2012]. Adaptability is a key factor in terms of user experience and it is based on the concept of “Context” and “Context awareness” where: - Context is defined as the situation within which something exists or happens, and that can help explain it - Cambridge Dictionary - […] context awareness is a term that describes the ability of the computer to sense and act upon information about its environment, such as location, time, temperature or user identity. This information can be used not only to tag information as it is collected in the field, but also to enable selective 40
  • 41. responses such as triggering alarms or retrieving information relevant to the task at hand [Ryan et al 1998] Each user has a range of internal factors such as gender, age, saved preferences, social interactions etc. that help a Digital Signage Network in order to determine user’s needs and adapt himself to them. Furthermore, there are external factors such as time, weather, place where the system is installed that are useful in order to provide the right informative/ persuasive information users at the right time. Here there are some adaptive factors: For example, it’s likely that a user will buy a coffee early in the morning independently if he’s a man or a woman. INTERNAL FACTORS EXTERNAL FACTORS Gender Weather Age Time (morning, midday, early/late afternoon etc.) Social Interactions Period of the year (Christmas, Easter, Summer, Winter etc.) Saved Preferencies Place where the system is installed (commercial center, square, store etc) 41
  • 42. The main business value of Context-aware applications is to make things simpler by decreasing the cognitive load. Users are able of doing tasks quicker and better because they can concentrate in the main task without taking distractive decisions. 3.4 Integration of sensors and software logs in an analytics framework As we underlined in chapter 2, digital signage networks are bidirectional in the sense that they are able not only to transmit content but also to gather data through sensors and software logs. In a service like the one described in this thesis, sensors are: - Camera-based video acquisition sensors: Low cost cameras installed in proximity of terminal devices. They are usually used in analysis of Temporal metrics of a person’s dwell time, display in-view time and attention time are extracted. The system also determines demographic metrics of the gender and age group (Ravnik et al 2012). - Motion-Tracking sensors are usually used to determine the same metrics but with more precision. Always Ravnik et al use this technologies in their analysis and they found that that 35% of customers specifically looked-at the display, having the average attention time of 0.7 s. Interestingly, the attention 42
  • 43. time was substantially higher for men (1.2 s) than for women (0.4 s). Age group comparison reveals that children (1–14 years) are the most responsive to the digital signage. Finally, the analysis shows that the average attention time is significantly higher when displaying the dynamic content (0.9 s) when compared with the static content (0.6 s). [Ravnik and Solina 2012]. - Software logs: usually used to determine the number of interactions, duration of it, number of opened contents etc. They are usually used in bundle with sensors to reach an higher level of accuracy; Usually all data gathered from a digital signage installation are analyzed with machine learning and data mining algorithms and techniques in order to discover patterns in large data sets. Moreover, usage data must be cross-checked with sales and transaction volume data in order to determine the success or unsuccess of a digital signage campaign. 3.6 Social Media integration on the digital signage network Social medias provide a more personal and customizable way to get users involved through digital signage display. Restaurants, hotels, and even office spaces are incorporating live social media into their content rotation, showcasing 43
  • 44. customers’ tweets, Instagram photos, and more to drive engagement [Bovet 2015]. Social media integration increase the involvement: over time, digital signage that lacks interaction tends to blend into the background after a while, becoming just another advertisement to viewers. By incorporating live social media feeds, brands can recapture viewers’ attention by letting them have a say in their display’s content. Social media generates always new fresh contents: Creating new and fresh contents is one of the most expensive (both in money and time terms) challenges for social media managers and marketers. Users’ posts will create fresh, automated content will little to no work [Bovet 2015] on the brand side. Social media is free word-of-mouth marketing for your brand: 84% of consumers say they either completely or somewhat trust recommendations from family, colleagues, and friends about products – making these recommendations the information source ranked highest for trustworthiness. [Nielsen 2013] and 74% of consumers identify word-of-mouth as a key influencer in their purchasing decision. [Ogilvy/Google/TNS 2014]. Digital signage offers a great platform for feedback: Brands are opening up a new channel for buyers feedbacks. 44
  • 45. Here we described the usage of social media integration only under a “user- content generation” light. In the next chapter we’ll see how Practix is using social media on digital signage networks to create customized experiences. 3.7 Conclusion In the last two chapters we analyzed exhaustively the rising trends that are emerging from the digital signage scenario in order to have a complete overview of the state of the art and future integrations. In the next chapter we will go through the design process of TouchDomain and we’ll retrieve a lot of examples taken from the last two chapters and how we integrated in the software. 45
  • 46. 46
  • 47. CHAPTER 4. TouchDomain - The design process of a complex Digital Signage Network My collaboration with Practix started on January 2015, when TouchDomain was still a software at the embryonal stage. It was already possible to integrate NUI (Natural User Interfaces) such as Microsoft Kinect® and other important features that other digital signage services do not provide yet, even after years of development. In section 4.1 we will go through the methods that we adopted as standard routines in our design and in the development process at Practix. Consequently, in section 4.2 we will illustrate some milestones that we reached in the last months with a particular focusing on the human-computer interaction point of view. 47
  • 48. 4.1 The Design process The design process is a sequence of procedures that every company refines over years of researching. It’s an iterative standardized path created with the aim of guiding the design team on the creation process, from the very raw idea or first intuition to the final product refinement and release. In our company we developed a routine that goes through seven different steps: 1. Business request (optional): TouchDomain as other B2B (Business to Business) software has been developed in order to satisfy a business request expressed by a customer. Clients and commercial partners are our “eye on the market” and they are able to understand how to create user experiences that will fit into it. This step is not mandatory: not every feature designed and developed for TouchDomain came from a business request. 2. User-needs (mandatory): every feature in a software must connect a business value to one or more user needs (intended as final users, i.e. buyers) in order to become useful, successful and ensure acceptance from the user base. Understanding and “translating” them in a feature is one of the challenges of the design team’s work; 48
  • 49. 3. Design (mandatory): Design is meant as the rationalization and the ideation of a feature. 4. Prototyping (almost mandatory): a prototype is a draft version of a product that allows you to explore your ideas and show the intention behind a feature or the overall design concept to users before investing time and money into development . A prototype can be anything from paper2 drawings (low-fidelity) to a “real piece of software” that allows click- through of a few pieces of content to a fully functioning application (high-fidelity).  It is much cheaper to change a product early in the development process than to modify it after developers already developed the website, application or any other piece of software. 5. Testing (mandatory): In his book “About Face 3: Essentials of Interaction Design” [2007], Alan Cooper defines usability tests as a collection of techniques used to measure characteristics of a user’s interaction with a product, usually with the goal of assessing the usability of that product. Basically, usability testing (or user-testing) is focused on measuring how well users can complete specific, standardized tasks, as well as which problems they encounter while running the test. http://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/prototyping.html2 49
  • 50. 6. Iteration (mandatory): It is common to move back and forth between steps and to iterate the whole process several times until you have a solid design solution [Cooper et al. 2007]. 7. Release (mandatory) 4.2 Principal Milestones Alpha Release - February 2105 The first Alpha version of TouchDomain was released on February 2015. The design process started just a few weeks before. The software was a simple presentation tool (called slideshow project) which displayed .pdf (Portable Document Format) files on vertical and horizontal oriented screens. The user 50 Fig. 13 User-Skeleton tracked with Microsoft Kinect
  • 51. 51 Fig. 14 Example of shop window equipped with TouchDomain NUI interface
  • 52. is able to control the pages’ flows via touchscreen or NUI (Natural User Interface) such as Microsoft Kinect® (Fig14). This application suits perfectly for the use during both opening and closing hours to engage shoppers inside and outside the shop. Beta Release - March/April 2105 In the second release we worked hard on the design and the development of a multiuser and multitouch interface that let users discover contents about the store such as catalogues, pictures, videos and presentations in an organized and captivating way. We called this project “Multi-content Presenter” since it can display different contents to more users at the same time. 52
  • 53. Multiuser Interface In a crowded shop (let’s say >20 guests at the same time) there is an high probability rate that more than one person would be interested in interacting with TouchDomain’s screens at the same time (Fig. 15) . Usually computer applications do not effectively support co-located, multi-user interaction because of their underlying one-user/one-computer design paradigm [Stewart et al., 1999]. This is due to the adoption of small-size screens and applications designed for a single-user usage. Conversely, a modern multiuser interface such as TouchDomain, with its design must support: natural interpersonal interaction, transitions between activities, transitions between personal and group work, transitions between 53 Fig. 15. example of multi-user interaction on Touchdomain
  • 54. multitouch surfaces collaboration and external work, the use of physical objects (Scott S. et al 2003). INTERPERSONAL INTERACTION: The multitouch surfaces system is supposed to have an ergonomic form factor suitable for the collaborative activity being performed by the users. It must support group and environment awareness in order to guarantee a fluid interpersonal interaction inside a group of 2 to 4 users. The awareness of an environment is created and sustained through the perception-action cycle. When a person enter an environment (i.e.: a shop) in order to do a particular task, they bring with them a general understanding of the situation and a basic idea of what they are looking for. The information that they then pick up from the environment can be interpreted in light of existing knowledge to help the person determine the current state of the environment—that is, what is happening—and also help them to predict what will happen next (Gutwin and Greenberg 2000). TRANSITIONS BETWEEN PERSONAL AND GROUP WORK In TouchDomain both personal activities and group activities are involved in the user interaction on the multitouch screen. For example, we investigated the usage of two different messages inside personal areas for personal activities and inside a centered Group Dialog Windows for group activities. Location and orientation of these messages are crucial to attract the attention of the user or the group when involved in the interaction. Example of Personal to Group Interaction - Closing action of an application 54
  • 55. Closing an application is always a delicate task to design properly especially in a group workspace. An “Exit button” (Fig.16) is to be found in each personal area (Fig. 17) around the table, oriented toward the owner of the area: every user can decide to press it independently. 55 EXIT tap to start EXIT tapto start EXIT tapto start EXIT tapto start exit button USER 1 USER 2USER 3 USER 4 fig. 16: EXIT BUTTON inside personal area of the user EXIT tap to start EXIT tapto start EXIT tapto start EXIT tapto start personal user’s area USER 1 USER 2 USER 3 USER 4 fig. 17: personal user’s area: each user has a personal workspace area where controls are grouped.
  • 56. Once EXIT is pressed/selected by one of the customers, a lighter layer will obscure the interface and highlight the Group Dialog Window. The aim of this “separation layer” is to create a clear cognitive and interactive contrast and separation between personal and group decisions. The Group Dialog Window is placed at the center of the screen and it continuously rotates by 360°. Both position and orientation are neutral if compared with user’s positions around the table (Fig. 18). This design pattern was developed in order to elicit an urgency of cooperation between users around the table in order to push them to make a shared decision. 56 EXIT tap to start EXIT tapto start EXIT tapto start EXIT tapto start ARE YOUSURE? USER 1 USER 2 USER 3 USER 4 Group Dialog Window Light overlay Fig. 18: Example of Group Dialog Window
  • 57. SUPPORTING TRANSITIONS BETWEEN MULTITOUCH SURFACES COLLABORATION AND EXTERNAL WORK TouchDomain should be able to incorporate work generated externally to the multitouch surfaces system into the current multitouch surfaces activity (Scott S. et al 2003). We designed it as a tool which can ferry the customer experience from real to digital world and viceversa. TouchDomain allows buyers to transfer previously generated files, such as pictures taken in the shop with their smartphone on the multitouch surfaces system thanks to the adoption of QR-Codes and other communication services as RFID and NFC. Transferring files either across a network or using storage devices is often more complicated and cumbersome than necessary. Transferring data from one display to another should be as simple as saying “I want this information displayed there” while gesturing to the appropriate data and display. (Scott S. et al 2003). This is the experience that we tried to reach with TouchDomain. SUPPORT THE USE OF PHYSICAL OBJECTS Multitouch surfaces must support those practices that mix together the use of real objects with digital information systems and use the first ones as gates for the seconds. Thanks to the installation of RFID tags inside shoes and clothes users automatically get access to information related to the product placed on the interactive screen (Fig. 19). 57
  • 58. TouchDomain 1.0 Release - Summer/Autumn 2105 In the last release of the software we tried to integrate the use of social media on our Digital Signage System. In order to make this happen, we added a feature that allows customers to post contents displayed on the screen on their social networks channels. During the design process we met several challenges in solving privacy-related problems. We will describe them in the next pages. “HOW TO LOGIN“ INTO A SOCIAL MEDIA ON A 144” INCH DISPLAY INTO A PUBLIC SPACE Competitors’ solutions usually use touch-keyboards to allow users to login into their social media networks (i.e.: Facebook® ). We believe that displaying the standard online form into a big-size screen causes: 58 Fig.19 A customer uses a shoe as gate to get access to augmented digital information
  • 59. • A broken interaction-flow: customers would like to log in into Facebook® to post a picture or other contents. The login interaction should not take too long: entering an email address and a password on a big screen with a wide keyboard increases the probability of mistyping errors, which could interrupt the customers’ flow • Privacy-related problems: moreover, users would not accept to show their own email and password to any other person inside the store (Fig. 20). This kind of interfaces could hack their privacy. The two points described above gave us a good incentive to design a better way to login into Facebook® on a wide screen display installed in a public space. 59
  • 60. MOBILE SOCIAL LOGIN According to WE ARE SOCIAL (2014) , in Italy, the smartphone penetration3 as a percentage of the total population is equal to 41%. Moreover 26% of the http://www.slideshare.net/wearesocialsg/social-digital-mobile-around-the-world-3 january-2014?ref=http://iquii.com/2014/01/13/statistiche-e-trend-su-internet-social-media-e- mobile-per-il-2014-in-italia-e-nel-mondo/ 60 Fig.20: a user is typing his Facebook password on a wide interactive screen while another person is observing the operation
  • 61. world population has at least a social account. Facebook is the most used with 1.276 millions of accounts. Laying on these assumptions we developed a feature called Mobile Social Login where: • The customer’s personal device becomes the instrument to login into Facebook®; • Mail and password are typed on the personal device and not on the big-size screen in order to protect the customer’s privacy; • We developed this feature on Facebook® as a pilot study, in order to evaluate its efficiency and user acceptance. In the future we will integrate other social media platforms, such as Twitter® and Pinterest®. How Mobile Social Login works We will develop a scenario in order to describe the feature. Scenarios are a method of design problem solving by concretization: making use of a specific story to both construct and illustrate design solutions [Cooper et al. 2007]. 61
  • 62. Introducion Arianna is 31 years old woman and she loves fashion. She’s not “internet addicted” but she has a smartphone and a personal account on Facebook®. She will stay a week in Milan for a convention. Scenario She is walking on a central street when she is attracted by the Digital Signage installed outside the new XYZ ’S shop (XYZ is a fantasy name for a brand in the fashion industry). She decides to visit the shop and she goes inside it. 62 Fig. 21: Detail of the call-to-action that invites Arianna to scan the QR-Code to logging in into her personal Facebook account
  • 63. Arianna notices that the big-size screen on the wall is displaying the clothing of the latest XYZ’s collection. She approaches the screen and she notices a QR- Code that invites her to “Login with Facebook and share our amazing contents®” (Fig. 21). She takes her smartphone from the bag and she scans the QR-Code. Once scanned, the code loads a webpage on her smartphone where TouchDomain asks her the permission to get access to Facebook. Arianna accepts without hesitation and in less than 15 seconds her Facebook accounts is “connected” with TouchDomain (Fig.22) . Now she can post all the contents displayed on the screen on her own Facebook’s timeline and get real time feedbacks about her posts. Furthermore, 63 Fig. 22: Arianna just performed the Mobile Social Login on her smartphone
  • 64. in this way she implicitly helps XYZ in reaching the social audience of Arianna (Fig.23). In this section we described how a simple interaction, such as logging in into a personal social network can be performed in a privacy-safe way thanks to the use of common technological elements such as a QR-Code and a smartphone. In the next chapter we will describe the application of TouchDomain® in the fashion industry scenario in order to explore different uses of such a framework. 64 Fig. 23: Arianna’s Post on her Facebook’s timeline helps XYZ to reach a wider audience on this social media channel
  • 65. CHAPTER 5. Usage of TouchDomain in a fashion store In this chapter we will describe the adoption of a Digital Signage Network in a fashion shop scenario. We’ll understand that the experience inside the shop is an integration of real and virtual moments: sometimes technology is prominent, sometimes it works in the background in order to create knowledge, awareness, entertainment and socialization in and between customers. We will use the scenario design technique previously introduced in chapter 4, in order to explain our design choices in a simple and intuitive manner. 65
  • 66. 5.1 TouchDomain in a Fashion Shop Scenario: the user journey In the modern fashion store the adoption of TouchDomain represents a useful support for the store operators. On the one hand, videos and pictures shown on the screen give customers the chance to discover and hopefully be attracted by other clothing items; on the other hand these high-quality contents represents an innovative and engaging experience By entering inside the store the customer will start a five-step path (Fig.24 above) that should convince him to purchase. We will describe this process by 66 Fig. 24 Customer’s five-steps path in the shop
  • 67. using the scenario technique with the support of sketches and pictures in order to explain this experience as clearly as possible 5.2 The Social Login as a key for the store Mark is a tourist from the US. He is going to spend ten days in Rome. He is enjoying the historical center of the Italian capital when his attention is attracted by the store of a famous Italian fashion brand. He decides to have a look inside (Fig. 25). 67 Fig. 25 Diezel store from the outside
  • 68. The sliding doors open in order to let him go inside. A store assistant welcomes Mark and invites him to scan the QR-Code displayed on a little screen at the entrance desk. By capturing the QR-Code, he gets a little discount for the next purchase (Fig. 26). 68 Fig. 26 Mark is scanning the QR-Code in exchange of a little discount
  • 69. Mark accepts the offer. He takes his smartphone and captures the code with the camera. The QR-Code loads the Facebook® Mobile Social Login page. (see chapter 4 section 4.2). Just a few seconds after the login he receives the discount bonus for the next purchase (Fig. 27). The digital coupon will be retrieved during the payment process by and enables him to get the discount. Mark has just completed the Mobile Social Login. Now it’s time to visit the shop and find interesting products. 69 Fig. 27 Example of digital coupon
  • 70. 5.3 Gaming & Exploration A sign near the entrance desk (Fig. 28) informs Mark about the opportunity of creating a “personal whish-list” by scanning QR-CodeS placed on different clothing items and around the shop. The information will be categorized within the Multi-content presenter inside TouchDomain and they will be retrievable for future interactions and consultation. While exploring the shop, Mark notices the new Spring/Summer Collection. A digital catalogue is displayed on the interactive screen. Mark decided to explore it. An univocal QR-Code is associated to each clothing item (fig. 29). On the bottom of the screen Mark reads a label that says: “Scan the QR-Code to add it (clothing item) to your wish-list”. Mark performs the operation. (Fig. 30). 70 Fig. 28 Signage that informs the user about the possibility of creating a wish-list
  • 71. 71 Fig. 29 Catalogue displayed on an interactive screen. A QR-Code is associated to each item Fig. 30 A message informs Mark about the accomplishment of the operation
  • 72. Mark finds a bag on a stand just a few step away from the screen. He thinks by himself: “I could gift it to Clara” (Clara is Mark’s girlfriend). Again he noticed a QR-Code on applied on the stand and he scans it. This time the web browser of his smartphones shows a menu with two buttons (Fig. 31). 72 Fig. 31 A two buttons menu opened on the smartphone web browser
  • 73. He takes a picture of the product and after it, he adds it to his wish-list again (Fig.32). . Now Mark moves upstairs to the leather collection’s section of the shop. He notices an amazing leather jacket (Fig.33). 73 Fig. 32 Marks added a picture took by himself to his wish-list
  • 74. He takes the clothing item near a multitouch screen. There is a table just in front of it: a personal shopper invite Marks to lean the jacket on it (Fig.34). 74 Fig. 33 Marks finds a leather jacket from the Spring/Summer Collection 2016 Fig. 34 Marks lay the jacket on the table
  • 75. Thanks to the RFID reader on the table and to a RFID tag attached to the jacket, the contents related to the clothing items are opened on the interactive screen. Moreover, the personal shopper could navigate on the interface and shows to Mark other items of the collection (Fig. 35) 75 Fig. 35 Other items related to the collection are displayed on the multitouch screen
  • 76. Mark decides that it’s time to try the jacket. He goes to the fitting room. After wearing the jacket, he goes towards the Magic Mirror. Here Mark scans the QR-Code in order to initialize the interaction (Fig. 36). 76 Fig. 36 The magic mirror equipped with a Microsoft Kinect device
  • 77. Once scanned, TouchDomain is able to “recognize” Mark. The interface informs mark that it will record him in 3-2-1 seconds (Fig. 37). 77 Fig. 37 Magic Mirror informs Mark about the recording of a video that will start in a while
  • 78. A 10-seconds video is recorded. Then, Mark decides to try three other jackets. A video of Mark is recorded for each item. Indeed Mark is able to watch all the videos and decide which one could be posted on Facebook®. After clicking on the Facebook® icon, TouchDomain matches the post for Mark with several default tags such as #fashion #Diezel #shareit. 78 Fig. 37 Mark decides which video is ok to be published on Facebook®
  • 79. 5.4 Chill-outing & Purchase Mark decides to take a drink in the lounge zone of the shop. Here, a bartender offers him a cocktail. Mark accepts it and he takes a seat nearby one of the interactive tables available. Mark meets another visitor of the store, Giulia and after a small talk he decides to show her his wish-list. He perfoms the Mobile Social Login on the table by scanning the QR-Code and all the contents (pictures, videos and catalogue’s items) saved during his visits appear on the screen (Fig. 38). 79 Fig. 38 Wish-list is retrieved and displayed on the screen
  • 80. He opens the video about the leather jacket trial and he stares surprised at the 25 like that his video received in less than half an hour (Fig.39). The success of the video persuades Marks to purchase the leather jacket. He says goodbye to Giulia and he approaches the cash desk. The check-out assistant asks for the coupon that Mark received at the shop entrance. The cashier asks Mark to scan the QR-Code available on the desk. 80 Fig. 39 The interface displays the 25 likes received from Mark’s Faceook® friends
  • 81. Once the operation proceeded, the coupon is automatically retrieved by Once that the operation is done the coupon is automatically retrieved by TouchDomain and it discounts the final price (Fig. 40) Mark is satisfied by his shopping. It’s time to leave the shop with the bag in his hands. When exiting the shop Mark notices his video on the big screen at the entrance (The one he posted on Facebook®) (Fig. 41). He’s really happy and impressed about his experience at the Diesel ’s shop . 81 Fig. 40 A 20% discount is automatically applied from the Cash register
  • 82. 82 Fig. 41 The video that Mark recorded during his leather jacket’s trial is displayed on the big size screen
  • 83. CHAPTER 6. Conclusion The usage of Digital Signage Networks is one of the hottest topics in the shop experience. Statistics and growing industry investments support the innovation of benefits related to their adoptions. Moreover, the cost reduction of screens, interactive surfaces and NUI has encouraged the diffusion of this interactive media As we discussed in chapter 1, User Experience Design is mandatory for the development of new softwares, hardwares and experiences in this current, innovative and disruptive scenario. Furthermore, the adoption of Digital Signage Networks is not optional in an integrated communication strategy of modern brands (chapter 2 and 3). TouchDomain, the software designed and developed by Practix, is trying to “surf this wave of innovation”: on the one hand, by anticipating new trends like the integration with social media channels such as Facebook®, on the other hand, by improving the experiences previously designed by other firms. 83
  • 84. TouchDomain aims at becoming a technology where contents are not influenced by the software: the results should be a system able to adapt to any kind of market, product and brand. We tested TouchDomain by introducing it into fashion and automotive industry contexts (fig. 42), but we are pretty comfortable in assuming that the adoption in other fields would not imply any other obstacle. We registered more than 1500 logins in the first month after the first installation in a pretty small shop (about 140mq) located in the center of Milan. Moreover, the “Average Interaction Time” was equal to 3:35 secs. On the one hand, it should be considered that we are getting great results from a market where many big players have a dominant role. On the other 84 Fig. 42 Touchdomain applied to an Automotive Scenario
  • 85. hand, these results prove us that we can take advantage of the speed of a little startup such as Practix. In 2016 we will continue the design and iteration process started in 2015 in order to release new brand features and to improve the old one. 85
  • 86. 86
  • 87. Bibliography Bettencourt, A., Gwinner, K. (1996), Customization of the Service Experience: The Role of the Frontline Employee. Published in INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SERVICE INDUSTRY MANAGEMENT 7(2):3-20 · MAY 1996, pp 1-2. Kelway, J. (2012), Six Circles – An experience design framework [KINDLE VERSION]. published in UX MAGAZINE, JANUARY 2012 pp 3. Norman D., (1988), The Design of Everyday Things. New York, NY. published by Basic Books. Cooper, A. et al (2007), About Face: the essentials of interaction design. New Jersey, NJ. Published by Wiley Publishing Fagan, M.E. (1976), “Design and Code inspection”, published in IBM SYSTEMS JOURNAL, VOL15, NO 3, 1976 pp 1-5; Burke, R., (2009), “Behavioral Effects of Digital Signage”. Published in Journal of Advertising Research, June 1, 2009. 87
  • 88. Want, R. et al. (2012), Interactive Digital Signage. Published in Computer (Volume:45 ,  Issue: 5 ); Lundstrøm, L., (2008), “Digital Signage Broadcasting: Content Management and Distribution Techniques” London. Published by Focal Press; 1 edition (January 17, 2008) Zhang, Q. et al, (2010), “Cloud computing: state-of-the-art and research challenges”, published in Journal of Internet Services and Applications May 2010, Volume 1, Issue 1 Econsultancy, (2012), Multichannel Retail Report 2012. Retrieved on https:// econsultancy.com/reports/the-multichannel-retail-survey/ Ernst Haselsteiner et al. (2010), Security in Near Field Communication (NFC) Strengths and Weaknesses. Retrieved on http://events.iaik.tugraz.at/ RFIDSec06/Program/papers/002%20-%20Security%20in%20NFC.pdf "Project Natal" 101". Microsoft. June 1, 2009. Archived from the original on June 1, 2009. Retrieved on http://blog.seattlepi.com/digitaljoystick/2009/06/01/ e3-2009-microsoft-at-e3-several-metric-tons-of-press-releaseapalloza/. 88
  • 89. Resmini, A., Rosati L., (2011), Pervasive Information Architecture: Designing Cross-Channel User Experiences. Published by Morgan Kaufmann Publishers; Potente, D., Salving, E., (2009) Apple, Ikea and their integrated Information Architecture. This article is based on the authors’ presentation at the European IA Summit held in Amsterdam in September of 2008. Ryan, N. S., et al (1998) Human-Computer giraffe interaction —- HCI in the field - Workshop on Human-Compute interaction on mobile devices. Retrieved on http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/johnson/papers/mobile/HCI1MD.html Ravnik, R., Solina F. (2012) Audience Measurement of Digital Signage: Quantitative Study in Real-World Environment Using Computer Vision, Interact. Comput. (2013) 25 (3): 218-228. Stewart, J., Bederson, B.B, and Druin, A. (1999). Single Display Groupware: A Model for Co- present Collaboration. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) ‘99, pp. 286-293. Stacey D. Scott, Karen D. Grant, Regan L. Mandryk (2003). System Guidelines for Co-located, Collaborative Work on a Multitouch surfaces Display. ECSCW 2003 pp 159-178 89
  • 90. 90
  • 91. Webliography Norman, D. (1998) Whither "User Experience”?. Retrieved from http:// peterme.com/index112498.html Williams, D. (2010), Arbitron Digital Place-Based Video Study 2010. Retrieved on http://www.arbitron.com/downloads/2010_digital_video_display_study.pdf Anderson C. (2015) 10 key stats accelerating digital signage adoption. Retrieved on: http://www.digitalsignagetoday.com/blogs/10-key-stats-accelerating- digital-signage-adoption/ Mcmullin J., Starmer, S., (2010) . Leaving Flatland: designing services and systems across Channels. Retrieved on http://www.slideshare.net/jessmcmullin/ leaving-flatland-crosschannel-customer-experience-design Itzkovitch (2012), Designing with sensors: Creating An Adaptive System To Enhance UX. Retrieved on https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2012/12/ creating-an-adaptive-system-to-enhance-ux/ 91
  • 92. Bovet, C. (2015) Five reasons to integrate social media & digital signage. Retrieved on http://www.sixteen-nine.net/2015/03/24/five-reasons-to- integrate-social-media-digital-signage/ Nielsen Group, (2013) Under the influence: consumers trust on advertisement. Retrieved on http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2013/under-the- influence-consumer-trust-in-advertising.html Ogilvy/Google/TNS, (2014) Consumer behavior comes under the spotlight in new study. Retrieved on http://www.ogilvy.com/News/Press-Releases/ June-2014-Consumer-behavior-comes-under-the-spotlight-in-new-study.aspx Prototyping. Definition available on http://www.usability.gov/how-to-and- tools/methods/prototyping.html 92
  • 93. Acknowledgements First of all, this thesis is dedicated to my parents, for their unconditional support, patience and love. Secondly, this thesis could not exist without the collaboration with the whole Practix Team (in particular Daniel and Agostino). A special appreciation goes to my tutor, Professor Liliana Albertazzi, for the time and passion spent reading and editing these pages. Last but not least: a big thank you to Ilaria, Elena and Silvia for their patience in revising my English. 93
  • 94. 94
  • 95. 95