A design space for pervasive advertising on public displays (2013)

Today, people living in cities see up to 5000 ads per day and many of them are presented on public displays. More and more of these public displays are networked and equipped with various types of sensors, making them part of a global infrastructure that is currently emerging. Such networked and interactive public displays provide the opportunity to create a benefit for society in the form of immersive experiences and relevant content. In this way, they can overcome the display blindness that evolved among passersby over the years. We see two main reasons that prevent this vision from coming true: first, public displays are stuck with traditional advertising as the driving business model, making it difficult for novel, interactive applications to enter the scene. Second, no common ground exists for researchers or advertisers that outline important challenges. The provider view and audience view need to be addressed to make open, interactive display networks, successful. The main contribution made by this thesis is presenting a design space for advertising on public displays that identifies important challenges -- mainly from a human-computer interaction perspective. Solutions to these core challenges are presented and evaluated, using empirical methods commonly applied in HCI. First, we look at challenges that arise from the shared use of display space. We conducted an observational study of traditional public notice areas that allowed us to identify different stakeholders, to understand their needs and motivations, to unveil current practices used to exercise control over the display, and to understand the interplay between space, stakeholders, and content. We present a set of design implications for open public display networks that we applied when implementing and evaluating a digital public notice area. Second, we tackle the challenge of making the user interact by taking a closer look at attracting attention, communicating interactivity, and enticing interaction. Attracting attention is crucial for any further action to happen. We present an approach that exploits gaze as a powerful input modality. By adapting content based on gaze, we are able to show a significant increase in attention and an effect on the user's attitude. In order to communicate interactivity, we show that the mirror representation of the user is a powerful interactivity cue. Finally, in order to entice interaction, we show that the user needs to be motivated to interact and to understand how interaction works. Findings from our experiments reveal direct touch and the mobile phone as suitable interaction technologies. In addition, these findings suggest that relevance of content, privacy, and security have a strong influence on user motivation. Third, this thesis makes a set of contributions towards understanding audience behavior, which is particularly important for advertisers in order to choose appropriate content and to select suitable locations for future advertising displays. Our findings provide an in-depth understanding of the honeypot effect as a powerful interactivity cue. Furthermore, we identify a number of interesting effects (e.g., the landing effect) and explain how developers could design for them. We envision the results of this thesis to provide a basis for future research and for practitioners to shape future advertisements on public displays in a positive way.