Results

The project is only beginning. Now that the semester is winding down, the only messages students want to see is “Congratulations Seniors” and “Have a great summer.” By the time I present, exams will be mostly finished and half of campus will have emptied out. However, a key leader of the Integrated Marketing Team will be attending that presentation, so I’m sure this will be ‘to be continued.’

Examination of the application of the theoretical grounding

When I talk about communications theory to my husband, I compare it to his true artistic passion: stage lighting. “Framework” is like the rigging and trusses that surround the stage. Choosing a specific theoretical “lens” is like choosing a particular color of light.

No single color or theory looks good or reveals all. One of the more commonly-used lighting techniques, the McCandless Method, combines a triangle of light – one corner warm, the other front corner cooler, and the back corner something that fits the emotional mood of the scene, such as violet. For my project, I see the theories of Agenda Setting and Uses & Gratifications as those front lights working together to make sure the message content is useful and appropriate. Visual rhetoric plays in the background to add depth and artistic flair.

Ethical impact/concerns

Again, with the end of the school year already here, no one is interested in designing messages. My main concern as I created the artifact was to be kind. I can’t say derogatory things about other people’s work. (Okay, I can and have, but I shouldn’t, especially on a public website.)  I can lightheartedly poke fun at myself and show my own learning curve.  I can also show commercially-available templates that are good for other purposes, but shouldn’t be used for digital signage messages.

Technical lessons learned

I built my site on WordPress several years ago, and this project let me play with some of their upgrades. I love the new(ish) customization to blog navigation menus. Only the landing page is an actual “page” and the rest of the content is on posts. The most important ones (dos, don’ts) are “sticky” posts and will always be at the top of the list, no matter how much content I add. This course portfolio is built with a similar custom navigation menu, pulling in all tags of the category COML602.

Other WordPress functionalities weren’t so fun to figure out. The drag-and-drop modules have several limitations. Usually I can tweak how something looks through HTML, but these editor panels wouldn’t work. Every site building program has similar issues, it’s the price we pay for having a good-looking and responsive website.

Limitations

Timing and scope are the project’s biggest limitations. I would have liked to get some user feedback as I developed the site, and could have got some in February or March. I would have liked to add a survey demonstrating the effectiveness of these best practices. I would have liked to conduct a survey with students in three different buildings where digital signage exists.  These were not possible with the time frame.

Other Key Takeaways 

So many times during this semester, I thought Digital Signage was a trite, pithy little subject. I felt like I was a wanna-be designer throwing a temper tantrum at something inconsequential. Before I arrived, the Dean’s Office didn’t think twice about posting slides with small text. I really want those screens to mean something to the students and faculty. Because I want my work to matter to students and faculty.

Revisions or suggestions for future iterations

I did not complete all of the items listed in my design prospectus. If I am able to present to campus groups or other message designers, I would expect to incorporate user feedback or FAQ into the content.

Surveys testing the best practices on our particular student demographic would be a beneficial study for the future. Other future work could include surveys of the types of content students would find most beneficial. Finally, the university could benefit from a campus-wide messaging system that included site-based granular content control remotely; that would require a significant investment in both technology and content management.