What Should Schools Look for in Digital Signage Software?

Let’s face it, this is a potential mine field. There are many companies out there that have and offer digital signage software, TouchIT Technologies is of course one of them. So, in this blog post, we are going to try and examine what schools are actually looking for in their Digital Signage Software and more importantly, how we think as a company, we can help.

Below we think that we have identified 5 key elements that schools should look for when they are looking too select a Digital Signage Provider.

Simplicity – KISS – Keep It Simple Stupid!

Meet Susie! Susie is the epitome of KISS – cartoonified simplicity – if that even exists as a word which my spell check is telling me that it doesn’t. Signage has to be simple and we have seen and absolute tonne of product out there that is very good but it is simply too hard to use. This isn’t going to work in most environments, especially not in schools. It has to be simple. So, how do you do that? Well, in our case, what we have done is taken the approach in that our users need to have their hands holding all the way through the process. Every step of the way, “Susie” is there to help with a useful explainer video. Now I should point out here at this moment that in keeping things simple, we have not sacrificed any of the functionality. Providing functionality in an easy way is an art form – something that as a company we are working on and think we are getting pretty good at.

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Flexibility

What do I mean by flexibility? Well, I mean the fact that the schools want the software to be able to cater for multiple uses. So, when you look for software, you should be looking for something that can do regular “foyer signage”, it can help you create something for your canteen in the form of a digital menu and it should also cater for the in room and the ability to integrate with touch screens. This is exactly what I mean when I say that it needs to be flexible. If it does not, they you are not looking at the right software.

Straightforward Pricing

Does it all come down to price? Well, in the most part, I would say not, however, in a lot of cases it is the pricing structure that is the problem. Straightforward pricing is most definitely important. What we have also seen is that whilst from a company perspective, re-occuring revenue is the holy grail in software sales, it is not something that works well in schools. For example, just because a school has budget this year, does not mean that they have it next. If you are on a monthly or annual play for signage, this is not good. That is why at TouchIT Technologies, being the martyrs that we are, seriously, we have sacrificed revenue for the greater good in that we are a one-time-fee signage product. We know that this resonates well with the customer.

Functionality

You cant compromise on functionality. That is the golden rule when developing products and something that we believe very strongly about at TouchIT Technologies. You have to have a fully function, feature rich piece of software – that is the rule!

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Recycle Hardware

What do we mean by this? Well, we know that schools don’t like to have to buy new “things” if they don’t have to. Especially, if they are hundreds of dollars worth of computers. So, what we have done is designed our software in a way that you don’t need the latest and greatest computer to run it. You can actually run it from a 100 buck windows stick it is that light. So, what does this mean for recycling. Well, I think that a better way of describing this would be re-provisioning the computer for another use. In this case, a machine that was used in the classroom can now be moved over to digital signage. Simply install our playback App onto the computer, connect it to your web control panel and you are ready for digital signage – without the need to purchase new hardware! Again, very cool!

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