REST-based interface assets now send requests even when optional parameters are not set; The ESC key on a physical keyboard again exits a running experience in Player and Composer in Play Mode; Memory leak in animations has been fixed; Map collection no longer uses a different centerpoint when.

IntuiLab makes IntuiFace, the leading platform for creating, sharing and deploying deeply interactive, expressive and connected digital experiences without writing one line of code. IntuiFace is used by hundreds of companies in 55+ countries to build experiences driven by mobile devices, multi-touch displays, Microsoft Kinect, the Leap Motion Controller, RFID/NFC readers and much more. For any industry – including retail, hospitality, real estate, tourism, education – and for any intent – from digital signs, trade shows and exhibits to self-service kiosks and assisted selling. See more at www.intuilab.com. I joined IntuiLab back in September of 2011 and three months later I was in the Toulouse headquarters to appear on a video about our embrace of HTML5 for achieving operating system independence.. Jet lag and all, there I was talking about something already in IntuiLab’s pipeline, evident by the demonstration in our lab. Two years later, almost to the day, we released our iPad support.

(The press release is.) For a non-developer tool, this is insanely ambitious. If you don’t believe me, look around for another software platform enabling complete design freedom for the creation of multi-touch experiences without requiring any coding or OS knowledge.

You will find an abundance of “app factories”, yes, but they are both developer and mobile device focused. Then there are 4G environments like, and which are perfectly suitable for people who are fine with dabbling in development the same way they may like building Excel formulas. IntuiFace is for creative teams who want to cut right to the chase and using their own layouts, storyboards and content.

Despite adding support for a new operating system - specifically, iOS - absolutely nothing about experience creation has changed. The tool and workflow is identical and no knowledge of iOS is required. Before I request a world-wide celebration, we are humbly far from finished. First, our use of HTML5 to achieve OS independence presents a challenge as it is still an evolving standard that varies from Web browser to Web browser. Second, deployment needs grow in complexity. For example, wouldn’t it be nice to share iPad-based IntuiFace experiences without first requiring installation of Player for iPad? (Hint: Yes, and look for that from us in the spring.) Third, there is no feature parity between Windows and iOS - for example, you can’t run Flash on the iPad - so we have work to do to clarify what is and is not possible for each support OS.

(Look for OS-aware Composer “skins” that only present available features for a given platform.) Still, a celebration would be nice. More than two years coming and now it’s here. And as with everything else we do with IntuiFace, working with the iPad has been made simple and easy to use. You don’t even need a paid license to give it a go!

The world of is so new that the only context many folks have is that of presentation creation. The result is interpretation of IntuiFace as an evolution of PowerPoint,, and other slideware alternatives. This is fine to some extent since yes, you can create super cool presentations with IntuiFace. However, it also constrains ambition, blinding users from IntuiFace’s real potential. This is especially true about graphic content and data. Traditional slideware tools are optimized to tell a predefined story.

The script and content is organized possibly weeks in advance (though tweaked until the last minute!) and then presented in a rehearsed fashion. Sometimes the presentation is posted publicly, enabling an audience to step through predefined paths that are - again - established far in advance. There is nothing dynamic about the story which this is why PowerPoint alternatives focus on trying to make storytelling dynamic instead. As shared here, IntuiFace can tell a dynamic story. One of our secrets?

An “' concept enabling the integration of cloud-based data and server-based business logic with the user interface. With it you can connect to any, any, any, even.

With this access: • Don’t just create a sales pitch, launch an interactive catalog. • Don’t just run a digital sign, create an interactive information kiosk. • Don’t just post your website on an in-store display, add an interactive point of sale installation with mag strip reader and printer integration.

• Don’t just walk through slides at a conference, manipulate lights and other accessible devices (thanks, Internet of Things!) as you present. • Don’t just show static datasheets on your iPad, let your prospect walk through an interactive sales tool. Don’t quote me but in a sense, IntuiFace isn’t just interactive presentation creation without coding, it’s interactive application creation without coding.

And the beauty is that nothing is predefined in IntuiFace. Want to run a search function? Build your own instead of worrying about how well something we built does the job.

It’s total freedom to do what you wish. Plus, inside, you never know that behind the scenes is some complicated database or API. You just see and can the same kind of, and you find for out-of-the-box assets like and. The ability to work with external data and business logic is one of the key reasons to purchase the.

In our experience, once folks really grasp the potential of IntuiFace - the ability to break free from static content and embrace dynamic content - the list of potential IntuiFace uses explodes. Now you have uses for it in the lobby, at the tradeshow, in the store, at the gallery opening and much more without ever worrying about using out-of-date information and content. If IntuiFace is on your PC, you can create a lot more than just bullet points. I have an IntuiFace success story to share and it nicely captures a growing theme amongst retailers - the convergence of the Web, mobile devices and brick-and-mortar stores. - a subsidiary of - is a leading e-Commerce specialist in France.

Through their online presence they cater to more than 7 million monthly visitors by offering 3+ million products for sale across a variety of categories. This extensive reach encouraged the investigation of innovative means for making their endless aisle available outside the home. The result, named Boutique Express, is an IntuiFace-based experience that has just been deployed on 12 interactive kiosks located in a Toulouse, France shopping mall and in six stores situated within major Parisian train stations. Strategically placed in high traffic locations, these kiosks will be used to run holiday and location-specific sales and offers. Visitors can browse connected interactive catalogs, make purchases with a credit card and specify delivery locations. Following a successful pilot phase would be deployment to a larger percentage of Relay’s 1000+ locations, plus additional locations in shopping malls, railway stations and other high traffic areas. In collaboration with - an SAP Hybris system integrator - and - a digital agency - IntuiLab used IntuiFace to create and deploy Boutique Express just three months after initial conception.

Iterations are rapid and live mock-ups are easily shared with Rue de Commerce to ensure their requirements are met. The result is much more time spent on ideation and design rather than on implementation, making more elaborate designs and workflows possible.

The implementation phase no longer acts as a bottleneck. Additionally, with IntuiFace, Rue de Commerce was freed of template constraints. The Boutique Express user interface was fully customized down to the last pixel, using only the content, layout and story the client wanted to tell.

It is a fully bespoke experience, avoiding a pre-packaged aura that might encourage passers-by to ignore what is in fact an excellent value add for brick-and-mortar shopping. Folks typically lack a context when first coming across IntuiFace because the world of interactive experience creation is quite new. As a result, their inclination is to think of IntuiFace as an advanced presentation tool, something in the same family as slideware apps. As we are proud to point out - thanks to projects like our work with Rue de Commerce - IntuiFace is much much more than that. With it you can create advanced user experiences that (as we say on our website) are deeply interactive, expressive and connected.

There is still a way to go for the global penetration of touch-enabled displays. And I don’t mean phones or tablets because that battle has already been won. But what about PCs, digital signs, kiosks and other larger form-factor displays?

Looks like the tide has turned. In an article titled, DealNews reports that touch-enabled PCs have come down so far in price that - can you believe it - they are now CHEAPER than PCs with equivalent specs and a non-interactive display.

I can only presume this is based on current and anticipated sales volumes but it’s still very surprising. That said, I’m guessing you’re like me and wouldn’t be surprised that within the next three to five years, it will be hard to find Windows-based PCs that are not interactive. (Macs are another story. S touch screens were “ergonomically” terrible and “don’t want to be vertical.” Time will tell if his Apple successors embrace the same attitude.) Larger form factor displays exist to engage a user; they are meant to be noticed.

One of the problems with digital signs is that their effectiveness is very hard to measure. Make those signs interactive and all of a sudden you have not only a more measurable medium but one that is inherently more engaging. There will always be a place for non-interactive signs - not just traditional signage but even location-aware and environment-aware - but touch and gesture-enabled displays now have a seat at the table.

There is one final factor to consider - the ease with which the creative community can build interactive experiences. Certainly, if there is a barrier to entry either because of complex technology or cost hurdles, which are often interrelated, adoption is slowed. Say what you will about IntuiFace but the interactive experience creation market in general is lowering the bar, making touch, gesture and device-driven experiences more accessible. If they’re easier to create, and more groups want to create them, then the demand for interactive experiences will drive the demand for displays and other hardware that can run them. Will children one day marvel at the idea that displays were ever non-interactive?

Stranger things have happened. IntuiLab has been selected to participate at this year - come on by Booth 1231 from March 9 thru 12 - so we are in the throes of arranging every detail.

I thought this might be a good time to share some of the best practices we’ve learned over the years. Here I’ll focus on the production and display of interactive experiences as generic trade show advice can be found everywhere. • Favor vertically-mounted displays over tables: Tables are great for collaboration but their screens can’t be seen from a distance. To generate interest amongst the foot traffic passing your booth, vertically-mounted displays are easily more effective. • Assume self-directed use of your experiences: Wouldn’t it be awesome if you were too busy to handle all of the traffic in your booth?

Of course, so make sure the experiences you build are sufficiently intuitive that they don’t require a host. Keep the overflow engaged and busy. • Use attract loops: Even the most amazing interactive experience will be a total failure at a show if it just lies there when no one is using it. Make sure your experiences are actively doing something - typically, that would mean looping through a video - that encourages approach. This is particularly important if you’re busy and no one is available to rope in new visitors. • Reconsider use of gesture-driven experiences: Kinect is extremely cool but on a crowded show floor it can be easily distracted. If you must use Kinect, be sure to physically protect an area within your booth to ensure no one accidentally distracts the camera.

• Consider use of a remote control: I’m sorry if your solution doesn’t have a remote control but IntuiFace does -. This thing is great because it lets you wander the booth while controlling your display. Not only is it great eye candy but it lets you be more creative in how you handle the crowds. • Max out the PC: Don’t skimp on the PC just to save a few dollars. Maximize performance so you won’t have to apologize - or pretend not to notice - sluggish response times. The best investment?

A solid state drive. • Don’t worry too much about audio: Sure, you could incorporate audio in your experiences, but where would you put the speakers? Anyway, show floors tend to be loud so folks may not hear your musical accompaniment anyway - unless it’s loud enough to be annoying. • Bring multiple lint-free cloths: Expect crazy amounts of finger prints and who knows what else on your displays. Under trade show lights this isn’t going to look very good so keep the displays clean. • Bathe in hand sanitizer: Have you seen some of those people who have been smearing the same screens you’ve been touching?!? • License software before the show: Ok, this isn’t interactivity-specific but it’s relevant for IntuiFace which, for me, makes it count.

You have to assume lousy Internet access on the trade show floor so don’t wait to license software before going onsite. Have any others you’d like to add? And don’t be shy - drop on by Austin for SXSW!

The Austin-based (SXSW) festival is comprised of three conferences in parallel: Music, Film, Interactive. The latter is probably more appropriately labeled “Technology”. IntuiLab is in Booth 1231 of the Interactive exhibit hall and I am not there. Happily for you, this won’t stop me from sharing a few impressions about the Interactive conference. The very tight bond I share with my colleague on the show floor has given me insight by proxy. It is a shame that my colleague has no awareness of this bond but everything I share below is based on his good word so who’s to say the bond is fictional? • The talks can be quite good.

Presenters are energized by the entrepreneurial atmosphere and creative juices pouring through the streets of Austin. Surrounded by folks just waiting for an excuse to tweet/blog/instagram snark and criticism, presenters must make an effort to entertain and inform. The results favor the audience • The exhibitor list will surprise you. Feel free to look for big names but you won’t find many. Start-ups are digging deep to show off their creative ideas, hoping for that one magic booth visitor who can turn their dream into equity. Even the big players in attendance appear to be crying poor as IBM, Adobe, Philips and others have modest booths.

• Country pride reigns. I don’t know the history but throughout the exhibition hall you will find country-sponsored installations showing off the best and brightest start-ups from within their borders. IntuiLab is in the French booth, for example.

Germany is the savviest, giving away free beer with their start-up pitch. There is no US booth so I guess no one came from there. • The variety of technology options is boggling.

It’s hard to find a theme. The good news is if you’re in the market for a, SXSW is the place. These start-ups represent every walk of technological life and illustrate how creativity is alive and well. One shudders to think of how many will be with us one year from now but let’s hope it’s the majority. • Attendees are as varied as the technologies.

No surprise, without a clear technology theme, the show attracts attendees of all makes and models. As we say in the US, many are tire kickers - no intent to buy, just want to see cool stuff - but quite a few are either established or ambitious bloggers and journalists. • Book early. Driving around and parking is hell. Are we going back next year? I’m inclined to favor angling for a speaking slot rather than having a booth but I don’t want to get ahead of myself - the show isn’t over and the post mortem hasn’t been run.

Certainly, the show generates hype but it’s not yet clear how much of that hype rubs off on its exhibitors. We’re using IntuiFace to manipulate the using both Microsoft Kinect and a touchscreen. It’s happens to be very cool. Not in Austin?

Live vicariously through me! With a few exceptions - bless ‘em - creative agencies are in business to make money. As anyone who leaves their home has seen, there are ever increasing needs for interactive experiences at the trade show, in the store, in their workplace, on the street - you get the idea.

So it follows that agencies need to develop an interactive experience creation competency. IntuiFace is an automatic competency builder, enabling teams to create those interactive experiences using nothing but existing skills. But what is the best way to make money with IntuiFace? The existing model argues for a white label approach. Create an interactive experience and protect the “code”.

IntuiFace goes unmentioned just as the use of Flash, HTML5, Photoshop and more. Clients are only given and every change made to the experience is a billed job. Agencies can increase the competitiveness of their original proposal by shaving off cost due to the efficiencies brought by use of IntuiFace. Competitors messing around with code can’t compete with the timeline or the person-hour commitment IntuiFace users can make. But it’s not the only model.

In fact, because of the democratization of technology - the ability for more and more people to achieve what once required deep technical skill - there is a new model and it may be the future for creative agencies. Rather than white labeling an experience, offer the “code” along with design and training/implementation services. Customers can make changes themselves whenever they wish while holding the agency on retainer for advanced work and training. It’s like IntuiLab’s relationship with its Web agency.

They give us full access to the CMS so we can make a variety of content and design changes. We love this flexibility and it makes us feel much better about paying the agency for those things we can’t do with the CMS. Promote your use of IntuiFace as means of helping the client learn how to fish. Enable them to use IntuiFace and sell them your design services – since knowing IntuiFace means nothing about good design – and you set up a good long term relationship.

And of course, if your client could care less about fishing, provide them a full service. Relinquishing some control is radical and a bit risky as it’s predicated on creating an annuity business rather than on infrequent, large payments. However, to differentiate in a climate making more and more technology accessible to the masses, give it some thought. It’ll certainly make you stand out in the crowd. We’ve just announced, introducing timeline-based animation, native email support and automated experience publishing & sharing using any DropBox, Amazon S3 or - soon - Box account.

Anyone with an IntuiFace account can download the software today and many will because all three features are top vote getters for longtime enhancement requests. Feature details are spelled out. But there’s a catch. It’s beta software. What does this mean exactly? I suppose you could replace the word ‘beta’ with ‘risky’ as, otherwise, we would just have an official General Availability release and be done with it. That’s not the case.

Don’t get me wrong. We’ve tested the hell out of this thing. Everyone within the company has been using Version 4.5 for a couple of weeks now. If you download and install our beta software then you are installing something that has already been verified to work in just about all nominal conditions. Every “typical” scenario has been tested. The problem, as shared in other blog posts, is that with software like IntuiFace there are an infinite number of paths a user can take, making it literally untestable if the goal is total path coverage. As a result, testing “typical” scenarios is insufficient because even atypical scenarios might reach a high level of frequency as our install base grows and grows.

Which brings us to releasing beta software By making our software available early • Early adopters get to indulge their desire to mess with the latest and greatest, while • IntuiLab receives the time and effort of tens to hundreds of free testers banging away at the product. Everybody wins, including those who don’t participate in the beta as this process significantly increases the likelihood that when Version 4.5 officially ships, it will have rock solid stability. Beta participants just need to be cautious and resist the urge to do mission critical work as we cannot promise stability or prompt bug fixes. The notion of beta software is as old as software itself but this is our first real foray with IntuiFace Composer. It’s hard to believe our interactive experience creation tool is getting even cooler but it is and our beta testers have a front row seat.

Have an IntuiFace account and want to try it out yourself? After months of development and 30 days of beta testing, I present to you IntuiFace Version 4.5. Not content to build just one cool new feature, we built - well - a whole bunch. How do you count a “feature”?

Anyway, this is another packed release. And just so you know, all new runtime features - features not specific to editing in Composer - work on both iPad and Windows. Let’s get right to it and talk about the top features.

For a detailed list, check our our. For a recorded webinar demonstrating the big news items, follow. Animation: • Summary: Now you can cause elements in your experience to move, rotate, blur, fade, shrink and more. Every property represented by a range of numeric values - everything from screen position to opacity - can be animated. And using a timeline, choreograph multiple animation effects launched by the same trigger. • Applicable Composer Editions: ALL!!! • Experience Sharing: • Summary: Let’s be honest, it wasn’t easy to share IntuiFace experiences with colleagues and clients.

IntuiFace now automates the entire process. Use Composer to publish experiences to your own / your company’s Box, DropBox or Amazon S3 account.

Accessible in Management Console, these experiences can be shared with anyone who has an email address. • Applicable Composer Editions: ALL!!!! • Media Sharing + Email • Summary: Want to mark up the screen and email your client a copy? Use our new native email support to send one or more images, videos, documents or audio files to any email address.

Same goes for marked-up images and spaces created with our Drawing Tool. You can use our free hosted email option - it just works - or use your own mail server. Alternatively, save items to any USB drive or the local file system for offline access.

• Applicable Composer Editions: ALL!!! • Detailed Instructions:,, Floating Licenses • Summary: Purchase only as many perpetual Composer Enterprise licenses as you have designers working concurrently. For example, a 25 person team may only be using 5 Composers at a time, so just purchase 5 licenses. Install Composer on all 25 PCs. Licenses can be retained for offline use or released to IntuiLab’s license server for consumption by someone else.

• Applicable Composer Editions: Enterprise • Plus a ton more. You’ll find the complete list. Now go make us proud and build crazy good experiences! Inside IntuiLab we talk about tiering - the distribution of features to differentiate less expensive from more expensive license options. The goal of tiering is to incent upgrades. “Oh, you want Feature X?

You need to upgrade!” Tiering has always been a challenge but it has become all the more complicated with the introduction of the freemium pricing model. With a freemium model. The intro-level product is free for life. You can use it forever and never pay a cent. The product has very strategic limitations selected to encourage those interested in the software to spend money. By spending money, a user “unlocks” features and becomes even more committed to use of the software.

Lurking within this model is a tension between good enough and too good. Specifically, the free version must be good enough to ensure users can fully embrace the value of the software, envisioning the potential and being able to even use the free edition productively.

But it can’t be too good or no one would bother spending money on an upgrade, resulting in the cash-poor death of a business. IntuiLab offers a and I can’t tell you how hard we’ve thought about that magic balance between good enough and too good. We’ve honed in on limiting convenience, not functionality. For example, Composer Free must be online at all times.

(This is typical of a Web-based service with an “offline” offering.) Crippling problem? Not at all; some of our customers find this a mere nit. But for others, it’s inconvenient. Or take our watermark.

When using Composer Free, experiences must display the IntuiFace watermark. (Again, typical of Web-based design-oriented offerings.) Some of our users are happy to show the watermark because our feature set is too good to pass up. For others, use of IntuiFace needs to be a well-guarded secret. There is no right answer. In fact, we’re always reevaluating our tiering decisions. Overall, our goal is to make even the Free Edition so awesome that you are inspired to pursue multiple projects, justifying the expense of an upgrade.

Users may even be inspired to say thank you by ponying up some licensing fees. IntuiFace Version 4.5.3 introduces our first out-of-the-box support for a connected object – i.e. For any device other than a traditional PC that can be accessed, queried and/or controlled over the Internet. Interactive experience designers can now use IntuiFace on both a Windows PC and the iPad to control the, changing colors, brightness and display modes such as blinking and color transition. We achieved this through the use of our existing – in this case, via our – so consider our Philips hue support to be a reference implementation, something you can learn from to create your own support for any connected object in the marketplace for the. Watch this video to see it in action: Many of you reading this may be asking, why would IntuiFace bother with connected objects?

Presentations have traditionally been considered a static medium. Text, images and charts are preselected and organization is kept simple. The goal is to inform. A lively presenter can add energy but on their own presentations struggle to avoid becoming an emotionless and boring medium that struggles for attention. Ever see lots of folks gathered around a self-service slide show, fighting for a good view? It’s the unicorn of business.

With the advent of – experiences leveraging “natural user interfaces” like touch and gesture – the ceiling for active engagement was raised. Interactivity demanded engagement and well-designed experiences didn’t just attract eyeballs but actually increased information stickiness. A formerly static medium became dynamic. Presenters could wander in response to audience needs and self-service audiences could make an experience their own. Presentations became performances, choreography rather than bullet points. And now there is the, the world of connected objects.

Imagine if devices could answer questions and carry out requests. Now imagine being able to ask those questions and make those requests from within an interactive experience. What if you could • Change color, brightness and mode of the. Mariah Carey Fantasy Instrumental Download on this page. • Gather product information from -tagged products • Control and retrieve data from a -based device • Pilot your home with • Display health information from the • Steer the • Or control more than one connected object from within the same experience at the same time! Could your benefit from the incorporation of IoTs like these for everything from trade show pitches to retail kiosks, A/V show controls, museum exhibits and a connected home? Now do you see why we are promoting connected object use with IntuiFace? IntuiFace can be your centralized user experience hub for driving connected gadgets distributed across the Internet of Things in tandem with the stories you tell.

How cool is that!?! No surprise, we’re often asked by prospects for PC recommendations. This is not an easy question to answer. Of course, we have our but the operative word is “minimum”. With minimum resources, our don’t necessarily flourish, they just survive. This is also quite dependent on the content of an experience. A few images, a few buttons, a few spaces?

Probably fine. 10 simultaneously running videos on a 3x3 display wall? Forget about it.

Exist but they’re not unique to IntuiFace; any graphic-intensive software-based solution would have the same recommendations. Use a solid state drive.

Find a fast CPU. Use an independent GPU. Increase RAM to reduce/eliminate paging. Bosch Manuals Online here. Really though, and I say this with all seriousness, get the best PC you can afford.

We all have budgets and skies are rarely the limit but don’t skimp on the body or the brain won’t be able to flex its mental muscle. Audiences don’t forgive poor performance, they reject it. Meanwhile, you can be sure we think about performance as well. The goal is both resource sensitivity and algorithmic optimization.

A good example of the former is a capability we introduced a few months ago where IntuiFace dynamically downsizes images in memory when their display size is smaller than their actual size. A 1920x1080 Full HD image requires 4x1920x1080 bytes of memory.

If the experience design only uses this image at a dimension of 192x108, IntuiFace is smart enough to only use 4x192x108 bytes of storage for it. As you resize the image in Play Mode, IntuIFace loads more data into memory. As for algorithmic optimization, just think of this as our endless attempt to make the magic we do under the covers take less and less time. We always have an eye to performance bottlenecks and never believe all slack is out of the system.

A final point: even your design should account for performance. In this case it’s about the intuitiveness of your design and the time-to-satisfaction. Even a super speedy experience will fail if your user is lost or tired of waiting for whatever it is they’re waiting for.

Demand good performance of every contributor to your project. It’s not clear to me if a feature packed release is psychologically encouraging or intimidating to users. I hope it’s the former because IntuiFace 4.6 is a heck of a lot more than tweaks around the edges. To keep it simple we’ve identified three themes to group all that is new.

More Design Power: This is where we’ve given you more capability for creating cutting edge experiences. Even savvy developers have to tip their hat when they see what you can put together. •: Both drag and drag-and-drop are now recognized as triggers and triggers, as we know, can launch actions. Now every time your users drag an item over or away from a predefined section of the scene, or begins a drag move, you can have your experience react. It’s a classic feature for point-of-sale kiosks but let your imagination run wild. •: In Version 4.5 we added visual effects like blur and grayscale. In this version we’ve added hue rotation and brightness, meaning you can dynamically change the color scheme of items in your experience.

• Value operation interface assets: Interface assets are easy to underestimate. They are the “back door” enabling non-native capability to become native. We’re already shipping out-of-the-box interface assets for everything from social media (Twitter, RSS) to interaction devices (Microsoft Kinect, Leap Motion) to chronography (clock, countdown timer). Now we’ve added value operators including and a.

•: All fonts used with the Simple Text asset are now stored in the project, eliminating the need for you to preinstall fonts on other PCs running Composer or Player. Deployment of your experience automatically deploys the font as well. • Usability improvements: We ran a second round of usability testing using Version 4.5 and identified a long list of Composer tweaks we believed would make life easier for experience designers. The result is 30+ improvements, some subtle - use of white as a background color for new spaces instead of gray - and some not so subtle - e.g. The use of thumbnails in the Spaces panel and Content Library. You’re going to love the improvements.

Team Collaboration: We’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how to better accommodate the needs of large teams and - for design agencies - a large number of clients. The result is a long list of new capabilities as you’ll see here. NOTE: All of these features are available only to those with at least one Composer Enterprise license. •: An experience owner can now grant write privileges to his/her collaborators. Changes published by collaborators overwrite the original, eliminating the endless reproduction of designs across desktops.

•: Don’t want clients or colleagues with Composer to see Edit Mode? Share as Play-only and your recipients will be limited to Composer’s Play Mode.

•: Loan subscription and perpetual licenses with other accounts. Now your collaborators or clients don’t need to buy their own IntuiFace licenses, they can just use yours. You can even permanently transfer perpetual licenses if your goal is to “resell”. •: These are accounts you can control. They use your cloud storage accounts but can only see the experiences you want them to see. You can log into their license dashboard and Management Console.

And you can deploy to all Players associated with your secondary accounts. It’s fine grained control for project-level work. •: Select everything from a single asset with you custom configuration to an entire space and convert it into a design accelerator. It’ll be listed in your Design Accelerator panel across all projects. We also show you how to share it with colleagues. Player for iPad Updates: Our general rule is that every new feature we deliver must be supported in both Player for Windows and Player for iPad. So the good news is that everything above is - where relevant - application to Player for iPad as well.

The good news is that we are also closing the gap on features previously missing from the iPad Player. •: Use either Bing Maps or Open Street Maps. Add interactive points of interest to reveal additional information.

It’s everything you’ve done with maps on Windows. • Additional display options: These are the seemingly little things you don’t know you missed until you get it. Use the to create eye catching attract loops or other experience decoration. • Expanded list of iPad-ready interface assets: We’ve been updating out-of-the-box interface assets to make sure they’re iPad compatible. Check out for the complete list of iPad-supported interfaces. Of particular note - Philips Hue support!

• Performance optimization: Trust me, it’s trickier on the iPad to streamline performance so it’s something we’re always looking. You can expect even better response time, especially when large documents are involved. • QuickStart Templates: Available as a design accelerator, these templates are built for the Retina Display and highlight a variety of layouts.

Those new to IntuiFace will find particular value as these templates can help you to build something visually appealing in no time at all. We’ve talked in the past about the ever narrowing line separating digital signage from interactive kiosks. (If I can interact with a sign, is it still a sign?) Here I’d like to move past the distinction and talk about key requirements for, let’s call it, interactive digital signage. It’s 2014, the traditional signage industry is well commoditized, looking to interactivity as a new and verdant frontier. What are the must-haves for modern, effective interactive digital signage?

Interactive Ok, this is a no-brainer. Interactive signage needs to be interactive. But I’m not just talking single touch displays. Today’s consumer uses multi-touch tablets and gesture-driven game systems on a daily basis. Their savvy and expectation is quite high. Interactive signage must support massive multi-touch (10 concurrent touch point, 32 touch points, 64 ), gesture controls, mobile devices, connected objects (like Ninja Blocks) and wireless tag technologies like RFID, NFC and Beacon.

Sure, but that’s what cutting edge means. Connected Back to that savvy tablet user. What else do they expect? Highly personalized experiences.

For true engagement and stickiness, an interactive digital sign must be personally relevant. If the content is generic, your cool looking and acting signs will lose their luster. Successful interactive signage must be able to both dynamically identify the user and respond with information tailored for his/her profile. What we’re describing is a “connected” deployment in which each sign communicates with both devices (see the Interactive section above) and back office systems and/or public services to access information and business logic. It’s the only way to ensure relevance. Expressive Imagine a highly interactive digital sign with deeply personal customization.

This sign unavoidably has a large number of possible paths contingent on selections made by your user. What burden does this place on design? Not only must you capture attention but, once captured, that attention must be guided intuitively and (here we are again) engagingly. The signage must be both efficient and rewarding to make it worth the user’s time.

Flat, single touch buttons with simple layouts and a narrow list of media formats will either lose the user in mediocrity or lose them in a confusing jumble of undifferentiated content. Designers of these signs must be freed to be highly expressive.

Modern, effective interactive digital signage needs a platform enabling a wide range of interactive options, a deep level of connectedness to dynamic systems and a broad range of expressive capability to put any design concept within reach. It’s a tall order for traditional signage vendors. It’s also why IntuiFace throwing is its hat into the digital signage ring. IntuiFace fulfills all of the above requirements - and you don’t even have to write code. IntuiFace Version Gemini - that is, Version 4.7 - is another huge leap for what is already state-of-the-art interactive experience creation.

We have giant ambitions for IntuiFace and listen very closely to our customers. This is the result. There’s that we need some way to organize it. Let’s go with themes! Theme One: Expanded tablet support • Android! Create experiences that run on any Android 4.3 or later tablet using.

It is feature equivalent to Player for iPad, reusing the same HTML5 approach. • Tablet support for in Management Console.

Now you can post new or revised experiences to a fleet of iPads and Android tablets in the field without having to leave your desk. • Increased expressiveness on both iPad and Android through the addition of things like Excel (yes, Excel on iPad and Android!) and nested collections • New service offering - - in which we take your experience and create a white label app that can be posted to the Apple App Store or Google Play Theme Two: Address the scaling and operational needs of the Interactive Digital Signage community Starred items refer to new features in Management Console • * to remotely deployed Players. Use those tags to filter Players and then perform group actions like experience deployment.

• * • Log and centrally store usage collected from even the largest multi-device deployment. Download the aggregated data into Excel using Management Console or build dynamic queries to produce XML-formatted data for 3rd party analysis. • * Publish, share and deploy experiences using. This is a new complement to existing support for Box, DropBox and Amazon S3 cloud accounts. • * Remotely or • * Player for iPad and Player for Android. Live screenshots of what is currently happening on the in-the-field device, updated every five seconds. This was already possible with Player for Windows.

• in an experience using Cron notation. • for large scale deployments Theme Three: Increase productivity of creative teams • using simple drag-and-drop onto Composer. • Refresh already imported graphic media by just drag-and-dropping the updated.psd.

• Export.ai files as.psd to work with Adobe Illustrator as well. Theme Four: Improve Composer usability and expressiveness • Play significantly more video file codecs and streaming formats with the new. Includes formats like flv, mkv, mov (QuickTime) and much more. List of video formats supported on iPad and Android have increased as well. • Increase engagement-factor with the. Display live feeds from a Windows-connected webcam, then capture snapshots for post-processing (like use of a drawing tool) and sharing as an email attachment or by saving to the local disk.

• Offer new dataset interaction with the. Present items in an interactive DNA-like spiral. Like the Carousel collection, the Helix is endless. It can also rotate automatically or respond to user touches. • Increase sophistication of experience behavior using and interface assets. Our developers-in-another-life users will jump for joy but even non-developers will find these to be very useful • Enhance map-based experiences with the. Uses Google Maps API to convert addresses into latitude/longitude coordinates or vice versa. • Many Composer UI improvements to ease day-to-day work (incl.

New New Project window, ghost assets in empty collections,, improved retention of panel sizes and visibility, and much much more.) • Three new sample experiences - available for download in the Samples tab of the Composer and Player Experience panels - have been created to illustrate new and existing features: Self-Service Photo Booth, Photo Exhibition and Real Estate Property Search And yes, there’s still a lot more. You should really consider doing something that’s often suggested but rarely done: reading the. Seriously, so much is new that you may miss some cool capability that would make your life easier and your experiences more powerful. Our Developer team will now take a well deserved rest. Ok, for just a day.

But they earned it! The digital signage industry is in the midst of a struggle to keep up with the rate of change in technology and consumer expectation. Let me explain. The origins of traditional digital signage technology can be traced back almost a hundred years to the advent of television – a push medium with predefined programming and no immediate audience feedback. The signage community eventually shifted from broadcast to narrowcast, targeting “spectators” by location and time, but the principles (and thus the architecture) remained unchanged. Push media onto a screen and hope it attracts attention.

Meanwhile, in the last 30 years, computer interaction technology has evolved to a point where nearly. Moreover, trends indicate these connected consumers – of goods, of media, of community - will.

The ability to access any content, anywhere, anytime in an efficient way beats even the narrowcast. It’s no contest. This shift in information consumption has key implications on the digital signage industry: • Enabling real-time access to contextual and/or personal information is a must have. • This access must be intuitively natural. Today’s digital culture has elected touch gestures as its favorite interaction technique. You’re not going to find a mouse and keyboard in anyone’s pocket. • Content and design must be adapted for a multitude of form factors, from pocket-sized personal devices to multi-screen displays for large and engaged audiences.

Traditional digital signage platforms are ill-equipped to embrace these implications. The reason is simple – their technology predates the interactive device revolution. A fast-moving marketplace didn’t leave time to start over so the transition to interactivity had to preserve existing approaches. The solution has been to adopt HTML5 – code-heavy websites with single touch capability, compatible with existing content management systems, display technology and distribution networks.

Great for the vendors, not so much for their customers. Few signage customers have HTML5 skills of any kind, let alone advanced skills for touch-enabled HTML5, so they’re left with unoriginal, template-based content, a restricted list of devices and a never-ending professional services bill. True touch-first digital signage requires a platform built from the ground up to • target a large range of devices – from extra-large video walls and large format displays to 7” tablets • support true multi-touch – two or more touch points – and other interactive approaches like gestures, tag readers and connected objects • help signage customers create their own interactive, connected and rich content without requiring any coding skills • incorporate powerful and flexible analytic capability, objectively capturing user selections to overcome the eternal ROI challenge of traditional signage.

• deliver all other traditional signage capabilities - from scheduling to content management Ever wondered what drives the IntuiFace team? Now you know. Passive digital signage remains king for spectacular and high-impact communication, optimal for brand recognition. Everything else will be interactive. In fact, trend setting manufacturers like Samsung are building interactivity into their latest signage hardware (e.g. Touch-first signage is no longer a luxury, it’s an inevitability.