Introduction
If youʼre considering digital signage, youʼve probably asked yourself “where should I hang these things?” While there is no golden answer, we can all agree that where you hang your displays is just as important as the content and messaging you schedule for playback. To get started, we recommend that you ask yourself the following questions:
What does my floor plan look like? Visit your areas of interest and take into consideration foot traffic patterns, congregation points, and environmental obstacles.
Who is my target audience and what are they there to do? Are they here to shop, locate something, order food, be entertained, etc?
What are my messaging goals? Will I be communicating with staff, guests, customers, students, patients, etc, and will I be asking them to interact with the displays? Displays should be mounted in areas that address those audiences appropriately.
What size are my displays? 32 inch, 42 inch, 52 inch – bigger or smaller?
Where you hang your signs does not need to be drawn out into a terribly complicated process and only real world practice will determine optimal results, but it will take some planning. This starts with understanding the floor plan, the target audience and the intended purpose of the content.
Weʼve prepared this document to help point you in the right direction as well as provide you with some insight into best practices for hanging your signage based on viewing angles and gaining the attention of your viewers.
Your Floor Plan
When determining how signage fits into your floor plan, ask yourself the following questions:
How do people move throughout the area? Do they zip down long hallways? Are they rounding corners? Going up and down stairs? Going up and down aisles?
Where do the people congregate? Are there areas more susceptible to people converging or hanging out?
Is there an opportunity for signage in these areas of traffic?
If so, are there any environmental obstructions? If so, what are they? Can they be incorporated into mounting your displays or do you need to work around them (example: a pillar).
In this case study, we have two floors in a building. The top floor is our entry point for all employees as well as guests and is mostly comprised of executive management, sales, finance, and operations teams. The bottom floor is mostly comprised of the technology and development groups.
We have positioned our displays at points within our building that experience the highest foot traffic or are known congregation areas. For example, we have displays mounted at our wet bar, outside of the meeting rooms, a wall at the bottom of the main stairs, the center of the technology development areas, etc. Most displays are mounted eye-level, but due to obstacles in the office (architecture, wall materials, etc), a few of the displays were mounted above eye level. The displays mounted above eye level are still within 4 feet of height of the shortest person in the office. By doing so, we have kept the field of attention within acceptable parameters.
Viewing Height and Angle
Viewerʼs Field of Vision
On average, a person with 20/20 vision can accurately see and read text a few inches tall on your displays from 20 to 25 feet away(see example 1)
People walking to areas of interest cover 20 to 25 feet within 5 to 7 seconds (see example 1)
A personʼs vertical field of view is generally 75 degrees below eye level and 60 degrees above eye level (see example 2)
A personʼs horizontal field of view is generally 30 degrees from center line (see example 2)
A personʼs field of attention is generally only 20 to 25 degrees of their field of view (see example 2)
So what assumptions can we make on Viewing Heights and Angles?
From 5 feet away, the field of attention is within 2 feet of eye level (see example 3)
From 10 feet away, the field of attention is within 4 feet of eye level (see example 3)
From 20 feet away, the field of attention is within 8.5 feet of eye level (see example 1 and 3)
We generally donʼt know the average height of our foot traffic, so determining eye level standards is not an exact science. However, if we assume the average height of our audience is 5ʼ6”, and we assume they have normal vision, from 20 feet away the field of attention is 8.5 feet higher than they are tall. Field of attention plus the personʼs height (8.5 + 5.5 = 14). This means the displays should never be mounted more than 14 feet high off the ground, generally speaking.
Mounting the displays a little higher than usual (say 14 feet high), possibly angled down a bit, may fall into the field of attention for a larger percentage of people but it also means the average person will have to get closer to read the content on the display.
If we use larger displays, mounted as close to eye level as possible, we increase our ability to effectively capture the personʼs attention.
Displays mounted higher are more likely to fall out of the field of attention than those mounted closer to eye level.
When presenting to someone with less than normal vision, you will have a significant decrease in time to get your message across. What may have been 5 to 7 seconds to get someoneʼs attention, becomes 2 to 4 seconds. Larger displays, bright colors, large fonts and motion graphics will help!
Resolution and Display Size – Does It Matter?
We get asked this a lot. And the answer is, it depends. As you can see by the chart below, the resolution of your displays does come into play the closer you get to the display. So, the closer people are to larger displays, the more important higher resolution displays become to your presentation. If your displays are mounted high up on the wall or far behind an environmental structure, then the resolution does not matter as much and you can save a few bucks purchasing displays with a lower resolution. Additionally, if the displays are small (say less than 20 inches) but in close proximity to the viewer, again, the benefits of a higher resolution display are not noticeable – even to the trained eye.
So, What’s the Path to Success?
While you can take all of the points within this document into consideration when planning on where to hang your displays, the best path to success is to spend some time studying your floor plan, your foot traffic, target audiences and determining your desired outcomes. Changing content is a lot easier than changing where a display is mounted, so prior to hanging your displays… focus on collecting data around everything weʼve mentioned in this document and put your best plan forward. Then, keep an eye on how the displays are performing based on your original assumptions and make adjustments where necessary.
Youʼre probably asking yourself… “well, what if the signs fail?”
When we see signs failing, 99% of the time the screens are simply too far away from the targeted viewers. There are a few ways to solve this problem:
Use bigger displays. Larger displays can occupy a larger portion of a personʼs attention zone for a longer period of time. Plus, they look cool and have more impact.
Use normal-sized displays (32inch – 52inch), but put them right in front of the viewer. This works great in lobbies, congregation areas and waiting areas where movement can often be constrained.
Try to determine where the attention of your traffic will be focused and place your screens strategically. This may require some trial and error, so to minimize those efforts, pay careful attention to how your traffic moves throughout your facility.
We hope you find this information useful and wish you the best of luck in deploying your digital signage. If you have any questions, our representatives are always here to assist. Call or email us anytime!
Toll-Free: 877-344-8450Email: AccountTeam@industryweapon.com