... Wilhelm Halling, dimedis

  Wilhelm Halling, Managing Director dimedis GmbH

1. You won this year’s Digital Signage Best Practice Award for your kompas signage system in a shopping centre in Oldenburg. What were your specific challenges in implementing the system?

We won this prize for our sophisticated and fully integrated overall system: As the public that is targeted by a shopping centre is rather diverse, it was particularly important for us to develop a visually appealing and intuitive user interface for the info terminals.

To ensure that everyone could find their destination quickly throughout the shopping centre, we decided on a two-pronged approach: The first method takes the user to the relevant shop via a so-called Logo Cloud that displays all the logos of all the shops on the monitor. The second method involves entering a search word into a box. All the relevant keywords have been assigned to specific shops in the shopping centre. This dual approach allows customers to find their way either through purely visual elements or via the search terms they enter.

In addition, a special user interface is available for the operators of the shopping centre, allowing them to conduct a statistical analysis of customer input and then to view the results in the form of charts and lists. Keywords can be changed on the list itself, and new shops can have specific keywords assigned to them.

Moreover, it was of course a challenge for us to develop a terminal that would be visually appealing. One important point was that it could be easily identified as such from a distance. But other vital elements of the info terminal were its position and height, so that – if at all possible – everyone can access it without problems.

2. Compared with other European countries, Germany seems to be lagging behind in matters of digital signage. How would you view the current development of the market? What do you see as the main reasons for the current reluctance to invest?

Is Germany lagging behind? That’s not been my impression at all. Compared with 2009/2010, prospective customers are receiving more comprehensive information, and tenders are conducted more professionally. The digital signage market will settle at a level of “normality”, and the (commercial) benefits of the medium will become obvious now that customers, suppliers and the market have reached a more advanced stage. I would describe the prospects as excellent if shops succeed in covering the needs of their very familiar target groups with their own products.

Compared with a traditional poster, investments are still rather high, as the ROI cannot be very clearly determined (yet). A number of (major) projects which failed have unfortunately received far more attention than the ones that succeeded.

3. What can visitors expect to see at the dimedis stand at EuroCIS next year?

We’ll be presenting our entire kompas family (digital signage and routing) at EuroCIS 2012. Our interactive pack, in particular, is receiving a good deal of attention at the moment. It allows users to interact with screen messages, though it can also be used for controlling the players, for instance by switching from one channel to another. This matches people’s needs and usage patterns and is meeting with an excellent level of acceptance.

05/12/2011