Photo courtesy HypoSurface
By Michael Mascioni
Once considered a remote outpost of the art world, ‘ambient interactivity’ has recently emerged as a potent tool for marketing, entertainment and education, with special implications for digital signage displays. Whereas today’s standardized touch-screen kiosks could be referred to as ‘interactivity in a box,’ the field of ambient interactivity instead involves embedding or building interactive features into the physical environment surrounding the user, affording a more natural, flexible, fluid and dynamic experience.
Form factors range from interactive furniture, such as multi-touch-sensitive table displays, to kinetic-response spaces. These systems are enabling more expansive user experiences through the application of such technologies as gesture recognition and augmented reality (AR).
Tabling the evidence
A growing body of evidence has shown the significant marketing potential of multi-touch interactive tables and countertops in bars, restaurants, hotels and other gathering places. These systems typically allow customers to access an array of information and entertainment content, such as menus, tourist news or games. Their impact on business can be handily tracked, as they also allow customers to order and then pay for various products and services.
Multi-touch-sensitive screens are being integrated into tables in stores and restaurants. Photo courtesy T1 Visions
David Aichele, T1 Visions’ executive vice-president (EVP) of sales and marketing, says installations of his company’s InTouch multi-user, multi-touch-sensitive interactive tables in North America over the past several years have been generating “more revenue per table” for restaurants and bars than their non-interactive predecessors. In 2009, a study was conducted at an undisclosed restaurant using the interactive tables. As Aichele explains, the findings showed these tables earned 50 per cent higher revenues than the restaurant’s ‘regular’ tables.
Indeed, in restaurants that use both InTouch systems and regular tables, the interactive tables usually represent the highest percentage of occupied seats, suggesting customers are drawn to them. At the Cowfish Sushi Burger Bar, for example, a ‘build-your-own-fish’ game—which allowed customers to create an avatar with a touch screen embedded into the sushi bar, then send it onto a large, dual-screen ‘fish tank’ display—got locals talking and attracted new business.
“The response during the first six months was phenomenal,” says Alan Springate, the restaurant’s owner. “The touch screens and the game brought cutting-edge technology to our restaurant. We well exceeded our financial projections, due in large part to the ‘talkability’ factor.”
Similar results have been achieved elsewhere, too. Dax Patton, director of business operations for Digital Touch Systems, reports the Touch Café in Chisinau, Moldova, experienced an “over 14 per cent increase in sales” after it used his company’s T3 interactive tables.
Of course, there can be benefits to organizations beyond increased sales. The Minimally Invasive Spine Institute (MINI) Surgery Center in Dallas, Texas, uses four touch-sensitive counter displays in a waiting room to allow patients to check themselves in. These screens are integrated through practice management software with digital signs throughout the facility’s examination, pre-operation and post-operation rooms, along with medical and surgical information controlled from nursing stations. Together, this technology has increased surgeons’ efficiency.
“It’s not often surgeons have the opportunity to practise at a facility built with our needs in mind,” says Dr. Michael Rimlawi, co-chair of the centre’s board of directors.
