The term “interactive display” may not be a word that’s commonly thrown around, but you are more familiar with the technology than you might expect. You most likely use interactive displays every day. If you’ve ever used touch screens, then you’ve come across an interactive display. But what is it exactly?

Interactive Displays Definition

Many gadgets today feature an interactive display. Your mobile phone, tablet, and laptop use it, so does – most probably – the large “presentation board” in your office’s conference or meeting room.

“Interactive display” is the term dedicated to computers with flat panel displays that use advanced interactive display solutions and antivirus software and accessories to allow you to engage with the device in real time. Engaging with an interactive display means using your fingertips or a stylus pen to complete certain actions on the screen, including touching or tapping, swiping, pinching, and so on. These actions are called gesture operations.

In addition to engagement, interactive displays also provide solutions for collaboration through features, such as screen sharing, ability to participate remotely, videoconferencing, interactive whiteboard and many more. Basically, they’re all-in-one devices that allow you to manage and participate in meetings and other types of collaboration.

How Do Interactive Displays Work?

Devices with interactive displays allow you to make gesture operations thanks to multi-touch technology, which recognizes more than one point of contact. In addition to these actions, multi-touch technology also allows you to share your device’s screen with another person, you know, such as when you’re playing a game.

Multi-touch technology can either be InfraRed (IR) touch or Projected Capacitive (P-CAP). InfraRed touch technology provides a 20-point multi-touch and responsive touch screen experience, while Projected Capacitive touch technology provides up to 30-point multi-touch and multi-user support. IR touch technology has low latency and can experience delays but is cheaper than P-CAP. Meanwhile, Projected Capacitive touch technology is premium tech, so it features minimal latency and smooth response.

Where Are Interactive Displays Most Commonly Used?

As interactive displays are just that - interactive - they are the perfect devices for supporting business presentations, educational settings, and interactive customer support that might include experiential marketing and interactive maps.

In terms of experiential marketing, interactive displays boost customer engagement as it leaves a lasting impression by allowing customers to engage with the brand directly. Marketers might use interactive displays for market research or in-store trial sessions too.

In corporate settings, interactive displays provide a secure space for team members to collaborate face to face or remotely. Specifically, they allow you to start meetings speedily, share information and other content, and be creative and productive together with your team.

Interactive displays are also used in the classroom, replacing traditional whiteboards and even digital projections. Classroom interactive display features include checking attendance, recording and sharing content to the class, and allowing students to respond using their finger as a selection and writing tool.

Where Are the Benefits of Interactive Displays?

Interactive displays have made engagement and communication in the corporate, education, and other fields so much easier. Aside from this, they offer many benefits to users.

For corporate users:

Simple and easy to use. With all of us adept at using mobile phones and tablets, we feel at home using interactive displays. There’s minimal training – if any – required.

Boosts productivity. Thanks to its wireless connectivity feature, you and your team can bring or use your own device to work together on documents and other projects. This allows tasks and projects to get done and completed more quickly.

Increased collaboration. You can even control what’s shown in the display via mirroring what’s on your device onto the larger screen. This is possible whether you are in the room or joining remotely from somewhere else. Plus, devices with interactive displays come with preinstalled apps and the ability to connect to the cloud.

More engaging communication. Meetings and presentations are so much more interactive and effective. With its user-friendly interface, interactive displays create a visually appealing presentation that gets the attention of people in the room, increasing engagement. Interactive displays encourage participation in meetings and discussions as you can easily and quickly share information and ideas.

For classroom users:

Facilitates remote learning. During the pandemic, we’ve all had to adjust to remote everything. Adults went to work remotely, while children went to school remotely too. Post pandemic, this hybrid type of education and learning isn’t likely to get old anytime soon. Thanks to interactive displays, teachers are able to broadcast class lessons via video-conferencing apps installed and opened directly from the interactive display device. And as with the corporate setting, educators and learners alike also benefit from sharing and communicating through the cloud.

Provides effortless interactivity.  With interactive devices, learners can participate in class lessons, discussions, and activity through the use of their fingers, stylus pens, and paintbrushes. Most notably, interactive devices allow them to write on their screens as they would on a whiteboard.

Enhanced connectivity. Interactive displays can connect to many devices all at once, so everyone can see what the teacher is talking about. The best systems can even enable teachers to split screen and display multiple docs or windows on the screen.

Factors to Consider When Buying Interactive Displays

If you’re thinking about getting your own device with an interactive display, think about how you’re going to use it and for what. The factors listed below should help you decide which device to buy.

  • Size - How big should the screen or display area be? If you’re using it for personal purposes, then go for compact screens. But, if you’re going to use it for business presentations or other office meetings, then a huge boardroom screen will be a right fit for you.
  • Screen display quality - Interactive displays come with a higher resolution than projectors. While the latest TVs feature 4K technology, traditional projectors only display less than 1 million pixels. However, interactive displays’ higher resolution of over 8.3 million pixels displayed on the screen makes text easier to read and more at par with other smart devices like smartphones and tablets.
  • Sound and brightness - You should also think about where you’re going to use an interactive display. Is the room well-lit or dark? Is it noisy or not? Obviously, you’ll need a quiet room to be able to present your point across and the amount of light getting into the room should also be accounted for as a bright room means you and your audience will be able to see the screen clearly.
  • Software and collaboration features - Again, which software you install will largely depend on how you’re going to use your device. Will you be using a stylus pen or not? If yes, then you might need a specific software for that. In addition, you should also look for collaboration features such as the ability to sync with cloud accounts, save data in the cloud, and screen mirroring.
  • Single touch vs. multi touch - Single touch means using only one finger or stylus pen to engage with the device. Multi touch means using two or more touchpoints to complete an action, for instance, when you pinch to zoom.
  • Connectivity - Especially in business settings, your device’s connectivity is paramount to success. Who wants to wait around and listen while the screen buffers? For this, you should consult or work with your company’s content management system team to ensure that the Wi-Fi or internet connection is working properly and optimally during your presentation.

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