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Custom Baggage Claim Content Garners Rave Traveler Reviews

Art of Context designed and developed innovative baggage claim information displays (BIDS) on behalf of the Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport), owners and operators of Boston Logan International Airport. The large displays show relevant, real-time information to passengers, including baggage information and future bus times.

BACKGROUND

ArtofContext_ContentAwards_Transportation-0514The BIDS’ content was designed and developed by Art of Context on behalf of the Massachusetts Port Authority. The dwell time at the baggage claim is fairly long with the average exposure to the display being an estimated 10 minutes.
The airport’s primary objective was to present arriving passengers with baggage carousel information and actionable, real-time ground transportation information. The airport’s secondary objective was to provide various “infotainment” content, including weather, promotions, welcome messages for groups, and historical airport photos and regional event information.

The BIDS are comprised of eight 46-inch, bezel-less monitors mounted two over two and back-to-back. The formation is suspended from the ceiling over the baggage carousels. Displays have been installed over three carousels in two terminals, with the remaining baggage claims to follow suit over the course of the year.

CHALLENGES

Art of Context encountered several challenges during the planning and implementation of Boston Logan’s BIDS system. They included:

  1. Vetted and unique content. Unique, stakeholder-approved content was required for Boston Logan Airport’s BIDS system in order to help optimize the overall passenger experience. It was required that the content not include any advertising.
  2. Real-time content. Not all data is created equal. Though data feeds were available for the airport’s needed content, they were not segmented in an optimized way for signage display.
  3. Location-based content. There are more than 20 baggage carousels at Boston Logan Airport. Managing the content, deployment and maintenance required a flexible and smart approach.
  4. Minimizing bezels. The BIDS display was a single “canvas” stretched across four screens. Art of Context wanted to ensure legibility across bezels for the data-intensive content.

SOLUTIONS

Art of Context (AOC) was able to develop and deploy the following solutions:

  1. Vetted and unique content. The company used its expertise in user experience design and project management to build consensus among various airport stakeholders regarding content without losing sight of the most important user of all — the passenger.
  2. Real-time content. AOC developed a web services data layer to provide the BIDS displays with real-time data. In some cases, this layer wrapped external feeds to make them more consumable by the signage software.
  3. Location-based content. One template is used for all baggage claims, but the different locations are coded with variables that enable the appropriate flight and bus information to be displayed. This greatly simplifies the maintenance and operation of the digital signage.
  4. Minimizing bezels. The BIDS design is one canvas “stretched” across four screens. Rather than ignore the bezel, AOC worked it into its data-intensive design to truly give the appearance of a single canvas.

RESULTS

In July of 2013, Massport consulted with an external marketing firm to test the efficacy of the content and design of the new baggage claim displays.

Over the course of two days, the firm conducted 20 in-depth interviews with arriving passengers who had checked baggage. The passenger response to the baggage claim displays was overwhelmingly positive. The respondents especially appreciated the real-time bus information to help guide their transportation decisions.

Typically, if digital signage is utilized for baggage claims, it consists of a simple flight table with carousel number and/or pure advertising. Boston Logan’s baggage claim displays are truly unique in the industry.

Boston Logan has also heard glowing feedback from its airline tenants and intends to expand the deployment of this dynamic signage from the current partial implementation to all four terminals in the airport.

This case study is reprinted with permission from the Digital Signage Connection and originally appeared here.

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