Cannes Liones Touchwall 1.0

July 2009 – Keywords: Touch Screen, Interactive Display Wall, RFID, Interactive Signage

We developed an entirely new way for people to learn about festival events and share information with each other.

Prior to starting Variate Labs, Miles worked as a senior user experience designer at Schematic Inc. in Los Angeles. Miles designed the overall user experience for the new interactive digital signage wall at the Cannes Liones Festival in 2009.

The Cannes Touch Wall project aimed to create a flexible system that can be deployed at various conference venues that enables participants to research a conference schedule, surrounding venue and share information with each other. Serving as the information and connection hub of the 2009 festival, the Touchwall allowed festival delegates to explore 3D maps of Cannes and an expandable map of the festival hall; send themselves emails about restaurants and bars in the surrounding area, and directions from the venue; search for other attendees by name, and then send an email request to exchange information–and if they were standing side by side, they could exchange contact details on the spot. Along the top of the screen there was a visualization of the entire week’s schedule; each event was expandable into a unique “event widget” and sharable via email. The Touchwall’s most striking element was its use of RFID technology. By embedding RFID tags in the delegates’ festival badges, the wall was able to identify users as they approached, and offer them a personalized and unique experience alongside other users.

During 2009′s seven-day festival the Touchwall identified more than 6,000 users and garnered 23 million media impressions worldwide, via news articles, blog posts, and other mentions.

This project is currently in stage two development and more information can be found on the Schematic / Possible Worldwide website.

Multi-user Interactive Signage

The Cannes Touch Wall was created to be a flexible system that can be shipped to various conference venues around the world. This interactive wall enables participants to research a conference schedule, surrounding venue and share information with each other. The entire experience was built to be multi-user and enables up to twelve users at a time to spontaneously approach the wall, learn about the conference and share information with themselves and each other.

Smart RFID Recognition Technology

As individual attendees approach the wall RFID badges in each of their conference badges recognize their presence and show their names in the interface itself. Attendees can drag events and location drag tags to their name to share detailed information with themselves via sms or email.

Flexible and Shippable

This freestanding flexible system was designed to break down into smaller parts and can be shipped to different venues around the globe.

Information Organization Relates to Environment

Miles worked on the overall user experience concept behind the new interactive experience. This image is of an early ux concept for how information would be organized in the new interface. All content is organized in horizontal bands and the height of these bands corresponds to user heights and visibility requirements in the room (I.e. schedule is at top of screen and visible from across the room and Interactive zone is at chest height.)

Personal Connections

The new interactive wall system was designed to be a conversation piece to provoke conversations between conference attendees. Multiple attendees can share information with each other by dragging content to each other. Attendees can also drag their individual names to each other to share their contact information via sms or email.