1. Introduction The Authors Aradhana Goel, Michael Higgins, Mickey McManus, Marc Peterson from MAYA Design Special thanks to Mathilde Pignol, and the client that inspired this work: the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.

2. Interactive Information, Inexpensively: The Future of Signs We’ll start with a tour of the space, showcasing the different interactive waypoints. Then we’ll discuss the architecture of the system in more detail, and highlight some of the features that are now possible. But first, some motivation…

3. System Goals Learn more about designing interactive physical environments Provide solutions to wayfinding problems in our office Provide access to other information through the physical space of our office Do it all inexpensively and with a minimum of exotic technology

4. Demo Let’s watch a movie

5. Entrance to MAYA

6. The Lobby Barcode reader Projector

7. Read the newspaper

8. LED display in the library

9. Detail of the station Cards have bar codes that cane be swiped at the bottom right. In this part of the film we demonstrate the interaction.

10. System Diagram Data Sources Middle Tier Display and UI

11. Anatomy of a Sign Client

12. Content Management System

13. The Guts Old Laptop Cover

14. Clip 1: Map of MAYA Conference room availability Featured Projects You are here

15. Clip 2: Schedule of conference rooms Today’s schedule Dynamic update

16. Clip 3: MAYAns out of office today Who is out?

17. Clip 4: Food in the Kitchen Email notification

18. Clip 5: Featured Projects at MAYA Slideshow of projects Projects & Process

19. Clip 6: Fresh produce at MAYA Slideshow of images Work in Progress

20. Clip 7: Visitors at MAYA Image changes with weather conditions Visitor’s Schedule Flight and weather information

21. Lessons Learned: Successes It's easy to add lots of content System supports guided tours very well Users find the newspaper interface charming Minimal expense in new hardware

22. Lessons Learned: Failures Flash is tricky to program robustly, and sign downtime is embarrassing Laptop LCD screens are very small and not legible from a distance Our information design is optimized for close-up viewing Most users do not discover the card-reading interface; they have to be shown it. Cards can be tricky to manage. They get lost, or fall on the floor. Dependency on external data sources has to be managed carefully.

23. Cards Flying Off

24. Future Work Redesign to improve legibility and attractiveness at a distance Add more “charming” and non-standard user interfaces; perhaps something further into the tactile or ambient UI space than the newspaper Integrate public instant messaging Other suggestions or questions?

25. See the magic!

26. System Diagram Data Sources Clients Database CMSOrbitz PAT Transit LED Display Kiosk

27. Introduction INTRODUCTION MAYA Design’s office space can be somewhat confusing for new visitors. It has a complex layout, with many obscured sight-lines. Traditionally, architects overcome such difficulties by adding a simple information layer to the space: signs. This works well; but why not make the signs interactive and database driven? If we can do that, we enable a host of other applications. This demonstration shows a prototype dynamic wayfinding system deployed in our offices at MAYA.

28. Locating each waypoint