Measuring interactivity at an interactive public information display

Public Information Displays (PIDs) have only recently begun to support user interaction. Traditionally, such displays have been static and non-interactive, and past research has shown that users of such displays (both non-interactive and interactive) are often oblivious to them; a term commonly known as 'display blindness'. In this paper, we describe the results from a field study that was conducted on a gesture-based PID, to observe interactivity with the display over a number of different experiment conditions. Over a period of 120 days, a total of 2,468 people approached the display. Results show that 71% proceeded to face the display, and from this, 62% of these people proceeded to interact with the display, with average interaction sessions lasting 28 seconds. Results from this study provide valuable insight into interaction sessions with interactive PIDs, as well as an essential baseline for future studies into PID interactivity.