Challenges in Public Display Deployments

Public display deployments are often subjected to various surprising and unwanted effects. These effects are frequently due to external factors properties and phenomena that are unrelated to the deployment. Therefore, we conducted a literature review within the public display domain to investigate the causes behind the reported issues. This work presents a taxonomy of external factors affecting deployments, consisting of six categories: weather, events, surroundings, space, inhabitants, and vandalism. Apart from a few positive examples, we predominantly found negative effects arising from these factors. We then identified four ways of addressing the effects: ignoring, adapting, solving, and embracing. Of these, ignoring and adapting are substantially more frequent responses than solving and embracing emphasizing the need for researchers to adapt. We present real-world examples and insights on how researchers and practitioners can address the effects to better manage their deployments.