Studying Attraction Power in Proxemics-Based Visual Concepts for Large Public Interactive Displays

A key challenge in designing interfaces for large interactive displays deployed in public settings is to draw (and keep) a passerby's attention. Proxemic interactions--a design approach that applies human spatial behavior to guide system behavior in response to a user's proximity to a display--has been proposed for attracting and engaging potential users. Yet, the effectiveness of this approach has not been evaluated. Moreover, little research exists in the broader literature on the relative efficacy of possible visual design strategies to attract and engage large display users. We conducted a study to the effectiveness of promising visual concepts applied in a proxemic interactions framework: content motion and user shadows. While both visual concepts were more effective than a control condition at capturing attention, the inclusion of user's shadow was found to have stronger attraction power than content motion alone. In contrast, they were found to be ineffective for communicating possible user interactions in the display, limiting their potential to facilitate further system use.