Most digital signage content fails for ordinary reasons. The text is too small, there is too much of it, or the message runs past before anyone has read it. Good signage content is closer to a road sign than a web page. It has a few seconds, a viewer who is usually doing something else, and a screen that may be several meters away. This guide covers the decisions that make the biggest difference.
Start with one job per screen
Before designing anything, write down what a passer-by should know or do after seeing the screen. Be specific: "know today's specials", "find the registration desk", "scan to book a tour". If a slide has two jobs, split it into two slides. If you cannot state the job in a sentence, the slide is not ready.
Then work out who is watching and how. Someone queuing for a counter has time. Someone walking through a lobby has a glance. Content for a waiting room can carry more detail than content for a corridor.
Know your dwell time
Dwell time is how long a person is actually in front of the screen. It sets everything else: how long each slide runs, how much text it holds, and whether the loop makes sense. Observe the location before you design for it. Stand there at busy and quiet times and note how long people look, and from where. Then:
- Short dwell (corridors, entrances): one idea, a few words, a strong image.
- Medium dwell (queues, reception): a headline plus two or three supporting points.
- Long dwell (waiting rooms, break rooms, dining areas): fuller content such as schedules, news, or short videos, and a loop that does not repeat the same slide too often.
Keep the whole loop short enough that a typical viewer sees most of it. If your loop is longer than most people's visit, the last slides are shown to nobody.
Make it legible at distance
Legibility is the most common failure. Judge it from the real viewing position, not from your desk.
- Pick the farthest point where you want people to read the screen, and test the content from there.
- Use large, plain, high-contrast type. Avoid thin weights, script fonts and long all-caps lines.
- Use strong contrast, either light text on a dark background or the reverse, and check it against your room's lighting and any window glare.
- Place the key message in the upper part of the screen where it is not hidden by people in front or by furniture.
- Leave margins. Many displays crop or overscan, and text close to the edge can be lost.
As a rule of thumb, if you need to squint to read it on the test walk, the text is too small.
Use less text than you expect
Aim for a headline, one supporting line, and a clear call to action. If a slide needs a paragraph, it is probably better as a printed handout or a web page behind a QR code. Short lines read faster than long ones. Use numbers and prices plainly, and avoid abbreviations your audience will not recognize.
Use motion with a purpose
Motion draws the eye, which is useful when it points at the message and harmful when it is decoration. Let text settle and stay on screen long enough to read twice. Keep animations short and consistent, and avoid movement near the key message. Video works well for demonstration and atmosphere, but captions matter in places where sound is off, which is most public spaces. Do not rely on audio to carry the message.
Build from templates
A small set of well-designed templates saves time and keeps your screens consistent. Set them up once, with fixed zones for headline, image, supporting text, logo and live data, and lock the brand elements so that people adding content cannot break them. Templates also make it easy to hand updates to non-designers. A menu board, an events slide and a notice slide should each have their own template with sensible limits on text length.
Use live data where it adds value
Some content stays accurate on its own if it is fed by a data source: weather, news headlines, social posts, queue or room-booking information, and menu items. Live content gives people a reason to look at the screen more than once. Check each feed for reliability and moderation. Social content in particular needs filtering so that nothing inappropriate reaches a public display, and every live element needs a fallback in case the feed goes down.
Plan your refresh cadence
Content goes stale at different speeds, so set a schedule for each type.
- Fast: prices, opening hours, queue information, urgent notices. Check these daily or connect them to a data source.
- Medium: promotions, events, seasonal messages. Review weekly or when the campaign changes.
- Slow: brand messages, wayfinding, safety information. Review on a set cycle, such as quarterly.
Remove expired content promptly. Out-of-date promotions do more damage to trust than an empty slot. Set start and end dates when you create content, so it removes itself.
Review content before it goes live
A short checklist catches most problems:
- Does each slide have one clear job?
- Can it be read from the farthest viewing point, in the room's real lighting?
- Is the text short enough for the dwell time?
- Does it work without sound?
- Are the dates, prices and names correct?
- Does it have an end date?
Revisit the content after a few weeks. Watch real viewers, ask staff what customers say, and use any engagement data you have to decide what to keep, shorten or drop.
How ChannelSay helps
Our content development team creates brand templates, menu boards, motion graphics and live weather, news and social feeds, built for the way your audience views each screen. We can also manage scheduling and updates so that content stays current after launch. To discuss a project, contact us.