Concept
In technological terms, these displays are replacements of static citylight displays with a built-in portrait-orientated LCD display and a depth sensor to enable interactive content to be displayed and to detect user behaviour.
Our idea was to adopt responsive design to such interactive citylight displays. While responsive design usually deals with different screen sizes, designing for Responsive Citylight we researched on passive user behaviour, for example the user’s distance from the screen.
For instance, it is next to impossible to read the text on a citylight when you are standing 50 meters away from it. Similarly, when you are up close to it, there is no point displaying a huge photo. We solved this problem by providing the right layout for every situation. If you are close to the citylight, it provides details, small text by rearranging the layout. When you get far from it, its layouts responds by changing into a large, inviting photo with a short, readable slogan.
We developed three prototype variations: a bus information application for bus-stop citylights, an interactive poster with rearranging layout and an interactive poster with continuous animation.
Technical details
We used Awesomium HTML UI engine and Cinder library for C++ to prototype the application.
