Personalization of information delivery through digital signage: major requirements and methodology

Abstract

Introduction: The use of digital signage is currently a popular way to provide information to large groups of people. However,personalized (oriented to the interests and preferences of a particular user) and contextualized (taking into account the currentsituation) information delivery through digital signage is subject to a number of technological and legislative restrictions. Purpose:Development of a methodology of systems providing personalized information through digital signage. Results: The requirementsto the systems providing personalized information through digital signage have been specified: user anonymity, dynamic evaluationof user interest, user clustering, structured storage and processing of user interests and preferences, situational awareness. Theprinciples of the functioning of the systems of the specified class have been determined taking into account the need to preserveconfidentiality of personal data: information collection without active user participation, usage of anonymous profiles, self-learningand adaptation, ontological modelling of user interests and preferences, application of context management technology. An originalmethodology of the functioning of the considered systems has been proposed, characterized by the presence of feedback for refinementof the information delivered and information about users, as well as by the absence of any active participation of the users. The feedbackis achieved through application of the image analysis techniques, that allow to identify precisely enough the time spent by the users forwatching the information at digital signage as well as their age, gender, and emotions. Partial approbation of the results in the partof assessing personal visual characteristics (gender, age, emotional state) has been carried out based on photo analytics. It is shownthat chosen software tools enable evaluation of the user visual characteristics (age, gender, and emotions) with high precision, andshowing animated images ca affect the emotional state of the viewer. Practical relevance: The proposed requirements, principles andmethodology can be used for creating systems delivering personalized information to large groups of people, such as digital signage andelectronic scoreboards.