The one-to- many passive sign approach still dominates the majority of the digital signage manufacturer market today. Whether it’s a corporate lobby, retail store, airport or employee break room, passive digital signage is a cost effective way to disseminate information to customers, employees, and visitors alike.

The adverse to the one-to-many signage approach is the interactive kiosk which is traditionally designed to address one person at a time. Interactive kiosk-based signage usually requires a touch active display along with custom programming and mapping of content specific to the application. Becoming proficient in the development of the content for interactive kiosk applications as well as the ability to design and fabricate the kiosks themselves is essential to being successful in the space.

Another signage trend we are seeing isn’t revolutionary, but with the advancement of multi-head media players, disappearing display frames, and the overall drop in display pricing, we are seeing the demand increase dramatically for multi-screen arrays and video walls.

Prescribing to the theory that bigger is better, video walls offer high impact and an increase in real estate for more content zone possibilities. The days of daisy chaining a single input to all the screens is being replaced with multi-head media players capable of addressing each screen individually or collectively. This allows for more flexibility to manage and render zones to a single screen, over the entire display array, or manage multiple zones of various sizes anywhere on the video wall. All this can now be managed remotely from the central content manager.

Other trends emerging in the interactive signage space is the use of gesture based technologies. A camera that’s connected to the media player focuses on the users hand movements. This enables the user to interact with the display without physically touching it. Just a wave of the hand, pinching of the fingers or a swipe across the screen is all it takes to zoom in on an image or transition to the next screen page.

Another benefit to multi-head media players is that they are usually rack mounted and placed in a central location. By managing and distributing all the outputs from a central head end, you eliminate the need to mount media players behind the displays. This will become even more important as displays get thinner and are mounted closer to the wall.

As digital signage continues to evolve and new trends emerge, it’s important to have a clear understanding of the various technologies and the benefits they can deliver. Whether it’s a static sign, interactive kiosk, or video wall, digital signage continues to deliver results by improving the user’s experience and overall productivity.