Explore the four fundamental principles driving the design of ScreenCloud's RDM application screens manager. Discover how these principles ensure a seamless user experience, universal accessibility, and cost efficiency.

Key Principles for Effective Screen Management

So the product team at ScreenCloud came up with four key principles when we were considering the design and feature set for our RDM application screens manager. Firstly, that all of the screens need to be managed from one place. Normally we're working with an IT admin team that have admin level access and they want to see all the screens just in one area. Secondly, just because this is a product for technical people doesn't mean it shouldn't be easy to use. So the UI needs to be quick, responsive, intuitive and customizable. Thirdly, when you are setting up your screen, RDM should not be an additional step. It should be included right from the outset because it's a consideration that should be there for every single screen. And that brings me to the last point, which is basic RDM features should be universal for all at no extra cost. So not in any higher pricing tier. We believe it's so fundamental that you trust your digital signage network that you should never be put off by having to pay extra.

A detailed review of the information screens aboard the Heathrow Express, discussing their design, functionality, and areas for improvement. The discussion includes live updates, design transitions, and specific content for passengers.

Review of Heathrow Express Onboard Information Screens

This was once the most expensive train line in Britain but do the screens live up to the cost? As you can see these screens have been professionally designed both in portrait and landscape mode by clearly a very talented graphic design team so they're winning there as well as those calls to action so you can get online and take advantage of those shopping offers or more information. The other thing with these screens is they do contain live updates of connecting trains so that when you arrive at Paddington you know if the trains you're connecting to are on time and where to go. Now it's not completely perfect but what is? So I think the transitions between the content are a little clunky where it goes to black screen I'd look for a transition there just to make it feel more smooth and in addition it's not just trains that people get from Paddington it's also the tube so is that running well? Is there congestion in the area? I think you could have a little bit more of a transport update. The last thing I do like is that as you pull into the station the content changes and you know that you're arriving now and the information gets very specific about what to do next. Overall I think these screens are very well done. My screen score for Heathrow Express is four out of five. Is this a sign of genius? Let me know in the comments.

Many architects design modern spaces with screens but often overlook their practical use. This video discusses the gap between planning and execution phases in workplace environments, focusing on the effective utilisation of screens from day one.

Optimising Screen Use in Modern Environments

So, I'm not 100% sure if I'm right about this, but this is just a hot take and a hot guess, which on the internet these days means that I'm definitely sure. Architects draw out their plans for modern environments and buildings, and they put screens up, but they never really think further down the line exactly how is that screen going to be used, who's going to be used by, what is the point of this screen. They're just putting it up there to make the space feel modern, and then really it's someone else's problem down the line. And in fairness to them, that is really, they're brought in at the planning stage, at the early stages, but I'm not so sure at what point in that execution that people do start to think about these things, because I go into so many workplace environments that have all of these screens, and they're just blank, or they're showing cable news, which if you've seen one of my earlier videos, you'll know is not a good idea. So, there is a missing point in the chain between the planning and ideation phase of a new building or new environment, and then when people move in and have to take on that environment, where they probably need to think a little bit earlier about how they're going to be using screens, and get ahead of the problem so that on launch day, day one, they're actually using screens properly.

This video highlights the common pitfalls of screen content and emphasises the importance of transforming existing materials into screen-friendly formats. It discusses the role of providers like ScreenCloud in enhancing internal communications through effective design.

Transforming Content for Effective Screen Design

Alright, another spicy take. Screen content sucks. Usually when we see screen content, it's terrible. It's not formatted for screen, designed for screen, even written for screen. It's an existing piece of content that's being put on a screen. It might not actually even fit the layout. It might have way too much text, not a clear call to action, not imagery to draw in the eye. And the reality is that's actually on us. Customers don't know how to design for screens. They already have content in other approved formats, so maybe a PowerPoint that they'd emailed around. And it's actually down to the likes of ScreenCloud to take that content and transform it into screen-friendly, accessible design and best practice. So unless you're using a branding agency, which in commercial use cases in retail and quick-serve restaurants, they would be using an agency to make all that content really pop and shine and work the way it's supposed to. For internal communication, generally speaking, they don't have access to those resources. So it's on us, the providers, to help customers not put screen content up that sucks.

Explore how ScreenCloud is prioritising an AI first strategy in product design, transforming traditional user interfaces. Discover why adopting this approach is crucial in the next five years.

Embracing an AI First Approach in Product Design

So in an earlier video, you'll have seen me talking about how we were enabling customers to turn off AI features. If we look forward five years down the road, I think that our product is taking an AI first strategy probably before five years, to be honest. So the interface of a content management system with lists and buttons and search bars will just have faded away. There's no point having them when you don't need them. I don't think anyone really truly enjoys clicking multiple buttons to make things happen when you could just ask for it. And that is understood, interpreted and actioned immediately. So all software really needs to take an AI first approach in its design within the next five years. And ScreenCloud is absolutely no exception. People know what they want to put on a screen and to whom they want to communicate it. That part people can already articulate well. The tricky bit is then building a graphical interface and workflows and systems that then follow through on that promise. With AI, they can just explain it. And then if we have done our work correctly, this should be completely possible without them having to click loads of buttons and drag loads of files around.

I explore the zones versus full-screen debate in digital signage design. Whilst single messages work best for crucial communications, zoned layouts excel at attracting attention with peripheral information like weather or safety notices. ScreenCloud's flexibility allows both approaches - zoned layouts for ambient content with priority messages that pop to full-screen when needed.

Effective Digital Signage Strategies: Zones vs Full Screen

So there's a big debate amongst digital science experts about whether you should zone up a screen or just use a full screen. So for zones, just think of kind of like a 24-hour news or sports news where you have ticker tapes and information down the side, and then you've got the main panel would be the presenters and things like that. And obviously, full screen is full screen. Now, the argument is that if you really want to get a message across, you should just have one message at one time up on that screen. And I would broadly agree with that. And I think, generally speaking, because digital signage is running so often, actually having one message and then moving on to something else is fine. However, I do quite like zoned content for attracting attention to the main zone with the content that you would normally want to attract, but then having peripheral information to the side, which could be something as basic as weather or a clock as well, or just something useful that maybe wouldn't have necessarily attracted attention in the first place. It could be something to do with health and safety, for example, which people tend to start to block out over time. So I think done well, zones can be really powerful. But when there is a crucial message, it's better to move full screen. And the way we designed ScreenCloud was actually to allow for both. So you can have a zoned layout. And then if you have priority content that can pop up full screen, and then when that's done, go back down again. And that seems to work really well for customers. It also adds a bit of variety into the layout of the screen as well.

I discuss the challenge of displaying business intelligence dashboards on digital signage. Whilst ScreenCloud enables secure dashboard display, BI tools are designed for analysts, not general audiences; simplified, screen-appropriate designs using traffic light systems work far better.

Optimising Business Dashboards for Digital Signage

So one of the biggest feature requests we ever had at ScreenCloud since we started was the ability to show business intelligence dashboards securely up on screen. It was one of the hardest features for us to build, and we did a really good job of it. And now you can show pretty much any dashboard you want up on a screen securely. Great. Not quite. Most business intelligence dashboards are designed by business analysts. For people to be able to pore over and produce reports from and intelligence. Now, if you put that dashboard up on a screen 20 foot in the sky in front of someone who maybe hasn't even seen these kind of dashboards before and expect them to change their behavior, you're kind of howling at the moon, right? Business intelligence people build dashboards for other business intelligence people. Doesn't mean the data in them isn't relevant. It's super relevant, but probably the format of it is not suitable for digital signage. So much as we allow customers and encourage them to put data up there and it is one of our greatest features, we also emphasize the design of those dashboards needs to be appropriate for screen. Maybe just using a simple traffic system of red, green, amber to highlight when things are good and bad and just to have fewer numbers on there so it's easier for people in front of that screen to understand and maybe to actually make some kind of change as a result. Microsoft Mechanics www.microsoft.com 

I examine how skeuomorphism helped bridge the gap between physical and digital interfaces, and why it's time to move beyond replicating notice boards on digital screens. Modern digital signage should leverage its unique capabilities rather than mimicking outdated formats.

Rethinking Digital Screen Design: Beyond Skeuomorphism

Skeuomorphism is an interesting concept. Not everyone will be familiar with that. I think it became quite prominent in the early days of the iPhone through the Apple designer, Johnny Ive. When they put some of the original native apps onto the iPhone, like Notes and Contacts, they took a skeuomorphic approach to the design. So what they basically did was replicate the paper version of those products as digital assets. And that helped people become more familiar with their function and their form, even though as a digital asset it was completely unnecessary to make it look like paper. So skeuomorphism is typically what a human tends to do when they try and take the real life and make that digital. We've seen that with the web and with phones. We also see it with screens. So if you look at a classic notice board, you've got bits of paper printed out and stuck all over the place. And then when we look at how some of our customers are setting up their screens, they're replicating that form. They're putting zones everywhere, putting lots of different information up around. And it's basically an internet-connected notice board, which isn't really leaning into the medium. Now, if you look at the products that Apple pushes out today, those same products, Notes and Contacts, they don't look anything like an old Rolodex anymore. And that's because the audience has become educated and has seen that actually the digital product can do so many more features. We don't need to go back to the old way. And I think that we're at the same point now with screens. We just need to educate the audience on the medium more. And that's what we're trying to do here.

I explore how Apple's Vision Pro demonstrates the future of spatial computing and what this means for digital signage. The device shows how content can be contextually placed in physical spaces, creating location-aware experiences that feel natural and intuitive.

Exploring Apple's Vision Pro and Digital Signage Insights

So no doubt you will have recently seen Apple's new hardware product, the Apple Vision Pro. It's quite an expensive piece of virtual reality head kit, but it's also quite a groundbreaking new interface that Apple is exploring. And no doubt this will become more popular in the future as the price begins to come down. But looking at some of the early usage of the product, it's quite interesting in how it relates also to how we think about screens. So there was a video that one guy posted on Twitter, or X, that I thought was quite interesting. So I'm going to play that now and just talk it through. I want to show you guys just a little bit of what a real workflow might look like for the Vision Pro. See the Mac screen right here? By the way, full hand occlusion, which looks really nice and smooth. Messages, Slack, another Safari window right here. Keyboard works just fine like that. And also my mouse will go over here, and I can go ahead and type right here. And as I type, I can see a little preview. I'll show you a couple more things. Got the messages again. Got music set up here. Big screen TV set up on my wall. Gordon Ramsay showing me how to cook above the stove. Notes right here for some groceries. Can walk around freely. All right, let's just pause there. So a few takeaways from that video. Firstly, did you see how he was grouping content into the right location? So he had his workspace set up, and he had all of his workspace applications set up there. And then as he moved across the room to where it naturally was more of an entertainment zone, that's where it felt appropriate for him to put that content. And then naturally, as he got into the kitchen, that's where you've got that content tutorial. And I really like the notes on the fridge because what he's using is the fridge door is generally in family life a trigger point for to-do lists, not just like what we need to go and buy more milk, but also, you know, remember to pack the sports kit for the kids or what