Conveying interactivity at an interactive public information display

Successfully conveying the interactivity of a Public Information Display (PID) can be the difference between a display that is used or not used by its audience. In this paper, we present an interactive PID called 'Cruiser Ribbon' that targets pedestrian traffic. We outline our interactive PID installation, the visual cues used to alert people of the display's interactivity, the interaction mechanisms with which people can interact with the display, and our approach to presenting rich content that is hierarchical in nature and thus navigable along multiple dimensions. This is followed by a field study on the effectiveness of different mechanisms to convey display interactivity. Results from this work show that users are significantly more likely to notice an interactive display when a dynamic skeletal representation of the user is combined with a visual spotlight effect (+8% more users) or a follow-me effect (+7% more users), compared to just the dynamic skeletal representation. Observation also suggests that - at least for interactive PIDs - the dynamic skeletal representation may be distracting users away from interacting with a display's actual content, and that individual interactivity cues are affected by group size.