were intendend for large-display groupware development, I think they also hold true for interactive
public displays (although with some modifications).

There are five recommendations:

 

1. Task specificity and integration

"Whenever possible, designers should integrate systems into existing workgroup interactions rather than suggest new types of collaboration or information sharing."

The problem here is that there users should perceive some obvious value to system and for this to happen they should immediately see that something they already do can be made faster, or better, using the groupware system.

 

I think this is also applicable to public displays. In this case there isn't so much focus on performing a task - the public display system is not necessarily a tool-, but there must be some obvious value too. Value is better recognized if the display system is there for something specific, it must have been deployed for something. Making this something obvious to users is important.

 

2. Tool flexibility and generality

"Most successful systems support a breadth of collaboration practices, even when they were deployed to support specific tasks."

 

This must not be interpreted as opposite to the first recommendation. The system may be deployed for a specific task, but still let users perform other tasks. This is valued by users.

 

Something similar can be said for public displays. Users will value a public display more if they can appropriate it for something slightly different than what is was deployed for. If I can appropriate something, even though that something is public, I feel in it belongs to me, in some part.

 

Of course the problem is how to do this. How to design for general use?

3. Visibility and exposure to others' interactions

"Users often discovered potential uses for the system after observing other users interacting with the display." That sentence says it all for large-display groupware systems, but this may be also adapted, with care, for public displays.

 

When interacting with public display, users are among strangers (maybe familiar strangers, but stangers anyway). People are much more inhibited to interact in public places, so interaction with public displays should be designed in a way that allows users to interact without everybody else seeing them. People make mistakes while interacting with any computer system, and letting everybody see someone making a mistake is not very nice. Interacting using a personal mobile phone, for example, is a way to let people interact without everybody else knowing. So, how does this fit with the recommendation. It doesn't directly. I don't think public display systems should be designed to expose others while they interact. But maybe display systems can be designed to expose that someone has just interacted. This can be by briefly showing a message on the display, for example, or listing the last interactions that were made.

 

In both cases, groupware systems or public systems, the objective to let others know that the system is used. In groupware systems is possible to let other know how it can be used. In public system, I think it's more sensible just to let others know that the system has been used (and maybe what was done).

4. Low barriers to use

"Users must be able to interact successfully and easily with the system early if they are to adopt the system into their normal tasks."

 

In other words, KISS. Easier said than done, however. In public display systems, and others, there are some things that can be done. One is to provide several, perhaps increasingly complex but also richer, interaction mechanisms. Let people interact by sending a message from the mobile phone by SMS or Bluetooth, but give the option to install a mobile application, or use a Web form, for more complicated interactions. In other words, follow the architectural pattern of Christopher Alexander for chairs in a sitting room: put chairs of different sizes and shapes so that each person can choose the one she likes best.

 

I think there is another recommendation that derives from this one: reward users as they interact. How? Don't ask me...

 

5. Dedicated core group of users

"With all groupware applications, achieving critical mass is crucial to adoption."

 

There needs to be a group of people that uses the system regularly to keep it 'alive' and show others that the system is in use and that
they too can use it.

 

This is something we witness everyday. Even systems we think will never be used (maybe because we are shortsighted and don't see a purpose) because we think they are bad, get adopted if there is a core group that uses and encourages others to use it (think Microsoft).

 

This is related to the "Visibility and exposure to others' interactions". In order for this visibility and exposure to occur in the beginning, there must be a core group of users that uses the system regularly. I think this is true for public display systems as well.

 

Huang, E.; Mynatt, E.; Russell, D. & Sue, A. Secrets to success and fatal flaws: the design of large-display groupware Computer Graphics and Applications, IEEE, 2006, 26, 37-45