Designing digital displays and interactive media in today’s cities by night. Do we know enough about attracting attention to do so?

With the huge transformation in the development of digital screen technology and its consistently decreasing cost, digital billboards are progressively replacing traditional static, two-dimensional poster advertisements in our cities1. Previously, due to the substantial expenditure involved, they were only available to major international brands with vast promotional resources to build their brand fame. Today, however, they are being used increasingly by advertisers to deliver all kinds of messages from simple ones to more sophisticated, interactive storytelling. Soon, however, even newer ways of purchasing advertisements using computers will be introduced by the outdoor media industry to address the public, so potentially everybody will be able to rent out available advertising space and communicate the message. But are we ready for this next step? As there are no proper guidelines or regulations in place for this new medium in the urban realm, today we are facing issues such as no integration of the display’s location into the built environment, no specifications based on knowledge of human perception and the human centric design approach, no control over its content quality, and so called ‘display blindness’2 seems to be a common collective urban experience at night. Taking London as one of the most cutting-edge outdoor digital advertising environments in the world3 (with the largest number of these screens traditionally located in or in close proximity to Piccadilly Circus) this paper discusses various aspects of this new medium. Besides the layout and geometry of the space, it also focuses on navigation and attracting the visual attention of passers-by at night in a practical human oriented context. Additionally, questions regarding complex sensory, social, special and interactional issues and the necessity for interdisciplinary collaboration have been addressed. Fig. 1. Digital displays and interactive media have recently been considered an essential element of retail strategy to attract residents as well as visitors/tourists in the hours after darkness. © by Landsec Conscious Cities Anthology 2018: Human-Centred Design, Science, and Technology. ISSN 2514-6815. DOI: 10.33797/CCA18.01 www.theccd.org/publications The screens are linked to the internet so the visual content, including ads, can be altered in real time. This relatively new trend of using dynamic images is in evidence all over the world. In view of this, how are the decisions regarding the screen’s location, size, brightness, content, etc., being made? Do the developers, architects, owners, designers and politicians ask themselves for whom they are designing public spaces in the first place and how these big digital screens may contribute to them? Who is making these complex decisions? Factors that attract our visual attention in the city after dark Despite recent studies and knowledge8,9,10 there is still a lack of understanding concerning various aspects of these new media during the nighttime. There is no coherence often these digital displays are designed without specialist knowledge or purpose. So far, little attention has been given to examining different attractors surrounding the interactive public display, i.e. people, artefacts, and stimuli that compete for people’s attention in urban settings and distract them from interacting with public displays11. Therefore, do we know enough about attracting human attention at night to make informed decisions on design of these screens and their content? Do they produce long term cognitive effects? What is the effect of light pollution on residents’ daily rhythm? Should digital public displays and their content be regulated more thoroughly?12,13