Developer's Guide

2-3
Cisco Interactive Experience Platform Content Creation Guidelines
Chapter 2 Design Considerations and Best Practices
Considerations
advertisement will have both audio and visual components. If there is an audio component, make
sure that the area where the kiosk is placed is quiet enough for the user to clearly hear the
advertisement. While advertising is important, do not display ads on a continual basis else users will
come to the conclusion that is the kiosk’s true purpose causing them to leave the kiosk and not return
to it in the future.
• Education: Educating the user is another content category. Product demonstrations, product
information, product comparisons, and customer testimonials can all inform customers. If customers
are informed, they are more likely to purchase the products and services that meet their needs.
• Entertainment: Consider including content to entertain the user. It could be a snippet of a music
video, an interview with a celebrity, trivia, or sports highlights. Some users may be drawn to a kiosk
by the entertainment content and then stay to experience the other content.
• Feeds: Engaging content grabs attention and continues to keep the user’s interest. Tickers featuring
sport scores, weather, news, or stock market prices give user’s real-time, relevant content. Live video
or video from local or cable channels are another option.
• User generated content: User generated content is material created by the users (customers,
consumers, commuters, travelers, visitors, citizens, etc.) such as videos, blog entries, tweets,
discussion forum postings, etc. Companies often initiate social media programs to stimulate
dialogue with customers and develop relationships. At the same time, useful content serves to fuel
much of brand participation on social networks and media-sharing sites.
Playlists can be data driven, event triggered, or rule-based.
• Data-driven: Data-driven playlists are those that are created based on user interactions or traffic
flow. If users are using the kiosk for one type of information over another, the playlist can then pull
content related to that topic. Similarly, low sales of a product could trigger a playlist highlighting
that product.
• Event triggered playlist: Playlists With the integrated interactive technologies, the playlists could
have conditional branches to engage the individual viewer for in-depth information exchange or
targeted marketing. Interactive screens can be updated by SMS text messages from cell phones.
• Rule-based playlist: There are many cases where content in a playlist is formed based on a series of
business rules instead of manual programming. Some well-designed content management systems
systematically construct the playlist based on the business rules and tags that are associated with the
content. The rule-based playlist ensures the content mix and flow to achieve desired results without
involving ongoing content programming efforts.
The following are best practices when building a playlist:
• Media choices: Choose media based on how the user will interact with the kiosk. People quickly
walking past the kiosk will grasp static content better than an animation or video than has a
beginning, middle, and end. If that static graphic conveys a relevant enough message, that person
may stop and return to the kiosk to find out more.
• Rotate media: For example, start with an animation, show a video, and then display a static graphic.
One video after another will not be as effective.
• Rotate layouts: Playlists can also alternate between layouts.
• Transitions: Transitions between messages and media should appear seamless. This can be done
with fading or a static graphic of your company name before each message.
• Multiple messages: Change the messages during the playlist. Don’t focus on just one message even
if you are changing up the media (videos, animations, static graphics, etc.). Begin with an ad for a
product, show a video about a related product or service, show a demo of the product, follow with
a customer testimonial about your company, and then show a static graphic of how they can purchase
the product.