Shop windows that have been turned into interactive displays are the latest way of grabbing passing shoppers’ attention
Touch me! demands the window of one of Carphone Warehouse’s Oxford Street stores. Having passing shoppers putting their mitts on the glass isn’t something most retailers would encourage – have you seen how much window cleaners charge these days?
But, at Carphone Warehouse, a trial of an interactive window is taking place, using technology that turns the pane into a giant touchscreen. Round the corner, at the Orange store on Carnaby Street, there is a similar plea. In this case, a wave of your hand in front of the window brings up content on a large projector screen.
No one was using either screen on a Saturday night when Retail Week went down to take a look, but it was a warm evening and central London’s revellers clearly had other priorities. Both installations are producing positive results, according to the retailers.
The interactive window at Carphone Warehouse is a pilot of a bespoke system called Carphone Warehouse Vision, created by the Belfast-based company Origin Partners.
Origin Partners commercial director Jonathan Kelly explains how the trial came about. “We started talking to Carphone Warehouse in February last year. It was just speculative on our part; we thought the technology had legs for a large retailer, as once it is created it can be rolled out to many stores,” he says. “Carphone Warehouse knows how many people come into the store, and also has an idea of how many people come past the store. It wants to capture some of that passing traffic.”
After the deal for the pilot was signed in September, the system was rolled out at a Carphone Warehouse store on Oxford Street in the run-up to Christmas. Kelly admits both companies have been on a steep learning curve since then.
The interactive technology is made up of two projection systems and a 50-inch screen in the window. A special foil has been stuck to the glass of the window to effectively turn it into a touchscreen, which operates the display behind it.
Kelly explains: “You can use a projector or an LCD screen in a window running off a PC. The magic is the foil that is used on the window.”
While the hardware has been available for several years, there is still much work to be done to refine the user interface and tailor the content to make it relevant and appealing to consumers on the street. Kelly says that a lot of time was invested in the “spinning” menus, for instance. The developers looked at other popular user interfaces, such as the operating system for Apple computers and Radio One’s web site. “The application is 100 per cent bespoke to Carphone Warehouse,” he says. “We said that we would create something that would work for them.”
The interfaces have all been designed specifically with the touchscreen in mind. Kelly says the developers took note of the poor user experience offered by some early kiosks – where often the user was not sure whether touching the screen was having any effect. He says: “It is important that the user knows that they have touched it.”
The focus of the content is on the products and services that Carphone Warehouse has branched out into, such as broadband, the Geek Squad technology support service and selling iPhones.
Kelly adds that a lot of the content has been repurposed from elsewhere. For instance, text and images have been taken from other media, such as Carphone Warehouse’s web site. Other content – such as short videos – has been adapted to make it relevant to where it will be viewed.
