PowerPoint Presentation
Making an Impact with Digital Signage
Laurel EbyWeb Services LibrarianSan Jos State University
Hi, my name is Laurel Eby and Im the Web Services Librarian at
San Jose States King Library. About a year ago, we got three
digital signs from campus for use in the library, and I was put in
charge of creating content for them.1
One of our digital signs
The signs are located throughout our Learning Commons, which is
packed with students whenever school is in session. I create
content for the signs in PowerPoint and export it as a WMV file,
which I then upload to our campuss content management system and
push to the signs.
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What do I do with these signs???
In the beginning I had no idea what I was doing what should I
put on the screens, how big were these screens anyway, and how long
could I reasonably expect students to stand there staring at them?
It was kind of trial-by-fire, and Im hoping to save you some time
in the fire by talking about some of the things I learned in this
process.3
Do you know the dimensions of the screen you're creating content
for?
The first thing you need to know is, just how big are the
screens youre creating content for?
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widthheightCommon Aspect RatiosWidescreen TVs
Old TVs and Monitors
Digital screens come in several different aspect ratios, but two
of the most common are 16:9, which is what most widescreen TVs are
these days, and 4:3, which is what the old TVs and CRT monitors
were. The aspect ratio is the ratio of the width to the height of a
screen. You need to know the aspect ratio of the screen youre
designing content for so you know what size to create the
images.
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Common Resolutions
These are some common screen resolutions for both aspect ratios,
measured in pixels. Chances are, your office computer monitors are
1920 x 1080, assuming theyre relatively new!6
16:9 image on a 4:3 screen:
If you put a 16:9 image on a 4:3 screen, youll either get black
bars across the top and bottom (called letterboxing, which youll
often see when watching movies on an old TV)
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16:9 image on a 4:3 screen:
Or the sides of the image will be cut off if you expand the
image to fill the screen.
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4:3 image on a 16:9 screen:
A 4:3 image on a 16:9 screen will have black bars on either
side
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4:3 image on a 16:9 screen:
Or the top and bottom will be cut off. So you can see that it
pays to know the aspect ratio of the screen youre designing content
for!
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If youre creating the content for your signs in PowerPoint, you
can set the aspect ratio of your slides under Design > Page
Setup.11
You need high-quality images for a screen that big!
You need to have large, high-quality images for such a large
screen!
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Small image, large screen:
Rawr!
If you put a small image on a large screen, it will either look
tiny, like this:
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Picture blurry or eyes messed up?
Small image blown up to fit screen:
Or really blurry, if you enlarge it to fit the screen! This
image is 215 by 150 pixels, much too small for a 1920 x 1080
screen!
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Much better!
Image source:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/swiv/2696231013/Large image:
You need to start with a relatively large image if you want it
to look good on a large screen. This image is 1024 x 720 pixels,
much more appropriate for a large screen.
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Where to find images?
If youre trying to find images to use that are covered by fair
use,16
Flickr Creative Commons
Flickr Creative Commons is a good place to start,17
Google Image Search > limit to images labeled for reuse
And a Google image search limited to images labeled for reuse is
also a good source.18
How much text is too much?
You can assume that people are unlikely to stand in front of a
digital sign reading long pages of text, but just how much text is
too much?
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Too much text!
This is definitely too much! It would be almost impossible to
get any useful information from this slide before it moved on to
the next one! The image should catch the viewers eye and give them
just enough information to pique their interest and tell them where
to find out more.
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Better!
This is better; its cleaner, and has the pertinent information
without overwhelming viewers with a wall of text.
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Interesting image and just the most important information:
As a general rule, use as little text as you can get away with;
interesting images are much more eye-catching! This image will
definitely catch peoples attention, and theres just the right
amount of text: a very brief description of the event and the time
and location.
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How much time should I allow for people to read all that
text?
Once youve created some actual content, you need to figure out
how long to display each slide for.
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Somewhere from 6-12 secondsTime yourself reading the slide
slowly to get an idea how long it takesNo hard and fast rule!
Theres not really a hard and fast rule, but Ive found that
somewhere between 6 and 12 seconds is generally long enough. Try
reading your slide at a leisurely pace to see how long it takes,
and that will probably be a sufficient amount of time for others to
read it. You dont want the slides going by so quickly that people
dont have time to read them, but you dont want them staying on the
screen so long that people lose interest either.
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Display for 6-8 seconds
I would probably display this slide for 6-8 seconds, because
theres very little text on it so its easy to pick up the pertinent
information quickly.
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Display for 10-12 seconds
A slide like this I might display for 10-12 seconds, both
because theres more text and because I want to make sure viewers
have enough time to get the most important information.
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Encouraging community content creation can save your sanity!
Encouraging community content creation can save your
sanity!27
*Get content from others in your organization!
There will be times when you just cant come up with anything new
or interesting to put on your sign, and this is why its a good idea
to encourage others in your organization to create content too.
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At the San Jose State library, we often use slides created by
our Associated Students to promote activities theyve got
planned,
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And we promote events from other groups on campus as well. Youll
want to make sure anyone who might be sending you content knows
your requirements, though. 30
But make sure they know your rules!
Ive often received slides that look something like this one! And
sometimes, when theres not much going on, Ill put up
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Sometimes you just want to do something fun!
Something fun!
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Laurel EbyWeb Services LibrarianSan Jos State
[email protected]@jausel
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