Digital Display Boards and Accessibility: Making Information Available to All

This article will highlight the critical need for accessibility in digital display boards and provide practical guidance on implementing inclusive design practices to ensure information is available to all users, regardless of their physical abilities.

Introduction

Digital display boards are ways to provide customers and clients with data in a streamlined, digital space. Today, they are rising in popularity among businesses and in public spaces alike for advertising purposes and information stations. Investing in digital advertising display boards is a new way to improve digital communication. 

The importance of accessibility in digital signage

When investing in digital advertising display boards, it is important that the information you provide remains accessible. Why does this matter? For several reasons:

1. Firstly, accessibility is often a legal requirement for ADA compliance. 
2. Secondly, the right level of accessibility with your advertising digital display board can help improve customer engagement by upwards of 20% in different cases. 
3. Thirdly, the right digital display board improves the user experience, helping people interact with things like video, audio, and other features. 
4. Finally, it helps increase the social impact of your advertising digital display board, generating trust with clients and customers while boosting the social impact of your business. 

With a universal design that incorporates things like brightness, text-to-speech, and other interactive features, businesses can capitalize on accessibility. 

Challenges to accessibility in digital display boards

However, knowing the importance of accessibility is only one part of the equation. There are still challenges to accessibility that can impede your ability to make the most of this new advertising space. 

Looking back on the importance of accessibility, there are several challenges, including:

1. The challenge of maintaining legal compliance under ADA, making sure signs are mounted and angeled appropriately, with the right type of contrast or text
2. The challenge of creating visually accessible content that reaches your target audience in a way that improves their engagement with your business and generates trust

Designing for Visual Accessibility

So, how can you design your digital display board in such a way that you capitalize on the advantages of advertising digital display board marketing while overcoming the challenges?

Best practices

Best practices should focus on things like:

1. Color use
2. Contract
3. Brightness 

Those customers, clients, or users who have visual impairments will need displays that have high-contrast advertising. Consider incorporating bright white text with a dark background. For example:

In order to achieve accessibility, a coffee shop has its digital menu printed in white lettering against a dark red background to help those who have vision disabilities. 

Brightness can be very helpful in designing for visual accessibility. For example, the brighter your display settings, the easier it is for people to see whether they have vision issues or not. Moreover, your company can emphasize the digital display by installing it in an area with limited ambient lighting around it so as not to detract from the sign. Similarly, the use of matte coatings on your displays can reduce glare and make them less reflective, helping to accommodate users with visual impairments.

Font considerations

Font considerations go hand in hand with successful digital advertising display boards. This extends to:

1. Font
2. Type
3. Readability 

The larger and brighter a screen with better contrast, the easier it will be to read, but the font and typeface used also play a role. Avoid cursive fonts or heavily stylized fonts if you can. While they might come off as fun or playful, too much can impair engagement from those with vision issues. 

The role of high-resolution displays 

As mentioned, brightness matters, as does font. However, both of those are aided by high-resolution displays, which enhance visual accessibility. Higher resolutions offer sharp, clear visuals and fonts. 

You also want to be aware of something called the pixel pitch. The pixel pitch refers to how far apart the pixels are spaced. A large billboard might have higher spacing, but that's not necessarily what you want in order to create visually accessible images. In these cases, a lower pixel pitch is better for digital advertising display boards.

Incorporating Audio for Enhanced Accessibility

The ways in which you can make an advertising digital display board more accessible extend to the audio, too. Your business can incorporate audio to enhance accessibility for those who are hard of hearing or deaf. 

Use of text-to-speech technologies

Text-to-speech technologies can be used to assist visually impaired users. With this type of technology, any text that you have generated as part of your advertisement can be converted into audio, and this makes it possible for people who have difficulty seeing to hear the key information in your advertisement instead.

Best practices

Other practices your company should consider are clear audio messages that are easy for text-to-speech products to use, with appropriate volume controls. You might also consider features where the text is automatically generated into speech in multiple languages or adjustable volumes to accommodate different user needs.

Use of Assistive Technology and Integrations

Finally, there are assistive technologies and integrations you can use to make your digital advertising display boards more accessible. 

Integration of digital display boards

Businesses can benefit from integrating their digital display board with mobile applications for personal accessibility settings. This makes it possible for users to directly connect or scan a code that opens on personal phones, from which they can control personal features based on individual needs.

Mobile integration

As mentioned, scanning technology offers a lot of flexibility in making advertisements accessible. QR codes and other mobile integrations can provide personalized assistance.

Conclusion

Digital signage accessibility is set to continue evolving, with machine learning that displays settings that make it possible to provide things like sign language recognition for those who sign in front of a screen with a webcam or potentially translate content in real-time based on user preferences. With so much potential down the line, investing in accessible digital display boards now can help position your company for great success moving forward. 

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