Building a business means good communication. And, in the digital era, communication means access to some kind of team communication app or task management software.

The marketplace for communication apps is huge, and slightly bewildering. We can access everything from standard issue consumer chat apps, to more complex intranet portals or internal communication tools.

In the interests of demystifying the world of internal communication tools, in their many guises, we've put together this updated list of team communication software.

Perhaps the go to for many looking for a team chat app, Slack has become a byword for team communication and collaboration. Renowned for its straightforward yet powerful interface, Slack enables teams to organize conversations into channels, facilitating easy tracking of project developments, general announcements, or department-specific discussions.

Slack features a bunch of great team communication tools including the option to send voice notes, jump into ad-hoc meetings or 'huddles' and share access to files via plugins.

And because Slack integrates with most of the other popular productivity software options, it can be a centralized hub for file sharing, internal communication and managing tasks.

Summary: Team chat app made with plenty of functionality.

Pricing: Free functionality for small teams. From $7.25 per month per person for the pro plan.

Of course, the search giants offer a diverse set of tools for remote teams and project management, Google Workspace offers a comprehensive suite of productivity and communication tools, including Gmail, Docs, Calendar, Meet, and more, allowing seamless collaboration across different mediums.

The ability to work on documents simultaneously and the integration within its ecosystem makes Google Workspace a favorite for businesses looking for an all-in-one solution to communication and collaboration.

Google Docs has usurped Word as the word processor of choice, and is perhaps the easiest way ever to create documents, spreadsheets or slides and share them with your team. With Google Docs everything is in the Cloud so you don’t risk losing your files and you never have to click “save”, because it does it for you. And, it's free!

Summary: Comprehensive workspace for everything from content creation and file sharing to video calls and diary management.

Pricing: Google Workspace is mostly free. However there are premium business options from $6 per user, per month.

Corporate communication relies on getting your message seen. The best way to do that? Put it up on your digital screens!

ScreenCloud revolutionizes business communication by turning any TV, iPad, or monitor into a dynamic digital sign. Ideal for sharing corporate updates, dashboards, and announcements in common areas or remotely. ScreenCloud facilitates a new avenue of engagement among team members, enhancing corporate culture and employee awareness.

ScreenCloud allows you to create content using over 70 different apps in the App Store such as social media feeds, news, world information and dashboards from customer support tools like Zendesk. Then you have playlists and scheduling, which allow you to create different content for different departments, days of week and times of day. As well as “emergency” takeovers where you can broadcast crucial information to your teams, as and when needed.

In short: Best in class display management, screen sharing and digital signage software.

When you hear the word “intranet” you probably think of something clunky and outdated. But Igloo is here to change all that. Igloo is a company intranet tool that pulls together all of the resources that are important to your team.

It allows you to create “hubs” of information, team rooms where people can discuss ideas and in-depth knowledge bases so that no one has to ask the same question twice.

Igloo saves time and that’s really important when it comes to how and why we communicate. If all of the resources you could ever need were in one place, no one would have to search for files, ask for details or hunt down locations again.

Igloo makes it really simple to do that and has an attractive interface that makes people want to use it. Igloo also integrates with many of the tools you already know and love such as Google, Office 365, Zendesk and Slack.

Summary: Enterprise grade intranet and internal communications tool.

Pricing: Variable custom pricing depending on company demands, from around $20,000 per year.

Security is really important in corporate comms. You’re often sharing private or valuable information, that in the wrong hands, could be disastrous. This is where an app like Lastpass is essential. Lastpass allows you to store all of your passwords in one place and then give access to employees through a login and a browser app.

Passwords are encrypted so they’re super safe, and when an employee leaves, you simply delete their account to revoke complete access to all of your company details.

Unlike some data management apps, Lastpass doesn’t slow you down. It’s easy to add a new password, change details and to enter it once on a specific site.

Once logged in, you only have to click the Lastpass browser tool and you can log into any site you like within seconds. It’s also safe as safe can be, with encrypted passwords and bank-level encryption that scrambles your data for secure transfer and storage.

Summary: Password and online security management for teams.

Pricing: Free level available. Pro business package starts from $3 per month.

Slack has widely become the “go to” message app of choice for corporate comms but another we really like is Flock. This app is slightly easier to use than Slack and has all of the features you may need for sharing information with your team, fast. It also has to do lists, notes and integrations with your Google Drive, making pulling in and working on documents much faster.

Flock syncs really well across desktop and mobile devices so you don’t have to spend time scrolling through messages on your phone that you’ve already read. It also takes up way less storage than Slack, a nifty 21MB for the iOS mobile app, compared to Slack’s 66MB.

Summary: Excellent team messaging app with productivity tools added on.

Pricing: Free for under 20 members. Pro plan starts from $4.50 per user/per month.

Wrike is a task and project management tool that allows you to easily assign tasks to team members with “@”-like functions. Different tasks or projects can be viewed by columns, in one easy-to-see dashboard which makes staying on top of different priorities easy.

The more you use Wrike, the more you uncover features like its timeline Gantt charts, budget tracker, proofing dashboard and more which make working at micro-level really easy. Breaking projects down into actionable steps ensures nothing is missed and the app also gives you a top-level view of where each project is at and the time you have left.

Summary: Collaboration platform for managing projects across different projects and teams.

Pricing: Free for small teams. $9.80 per month per user for pro plan.

Zoom is a web and video conferencing tool that makes video calls (often filled with technical problems)easy. Whether you’re having a multi-person meeting or trying to give a video webinar to customers, Zoom gives you the tools needed to succeed. Zoom meetings are easy to set up, run through the app and can be shared with those outside of your office with a simple link. Once that person is in your “room”, you can share screens, talk over video and send messages.

Zoom works across Mac, Windows, Linux, Chromebooks, iOS and Android and does one important thing: it makes video conferencing work. The ability to call or schedule a meeting with anyone, whether in your organization or not, makes this a no-brainer for improving the way you and your team communicate.

Summary: The go to choice for video calls for remote teams.

Pricing: Free. Pro plan from $159.99 per year, per user

A comprehensive project management software solution, Monday is less about direct messaging and more about keeping everyone on the same page. It excels as a project management tool by offering highly customizable workflows that cater to various projects and processes.

It has similar functions to other task management tools such as Trello, but enables team members to communicate within projects, or for departments to collaborate on specific or individual projects.

Monday's strength lies in its visualization of task statuses and progress, which keeps teams aligned and communication open regarding project developments.

Summary: Project management software with collaborative tools and great communication features.

Pricing: Free for teams of 2. From $24 per month for 3 users.

One of the most popular team collaboration and communication apps, Asana aims to simplify team-based work management. Its easy-to-use interface, robust task assignment and tracking features make collaborative work a breeze, and it's become one of the most popular project management tools on the market because it's good at what it does.

Whether setting up projects, delegating tasks, or monitoring progress, Asana provides teams with clear visibility and accountability, ensuring everyone knows their responsibilities and deadlines.

Some of the nifty tools include an at-a-glance calendar for task tracking and deadline reminders.

Summary: Popular team communication app allowing people to manage tasks across different departments.

Pricing: Free for teams of 10. From $10 per month per user on the pro plan.

For those organizations seeking to centralize their workspace into one intuitive platform, Notion has become one of the best tools on the market. Notion offers an excellent suite of tools and access to a wide variety of templates and plugins to expand functionality.

There is almost everything here, from task management features, project planning and AI content creation, to inventory management, HR tools and meeting trackers.

While it doesn't necessarily offer team chat, it does help everyone to see what's going on and access crucial information in one place.

Notion shines in its flexibility, allowing teams to customize their workflows extensively, making it a powerful tool for collaboration and knowledge sharing.

Summary: Comprehensive platform for planning, organizing, task management and even creating content.

Pricing: Free, with options from $8 per person, per month.

Microsoft Teams is not just another tool in the Microsoft 365 suite; it's a comprehensive communication hub designed to enhance team communication and collaboration.

Teams integrates closely with Office applications and provides exceptional features for chat, video meetings, and file sharing. It can also be used for ad-hoc meetings, scheduling regular team meetings and even collaborating on specific projects, with options to comment and edit on content within the chat.

Teams stands out for organizations heavily invested in the Microsoft ecosystem, offering seamless integration that enhances productivity and collaboration.

Summary: The go to team messaging app for companies using Microsoft tools.

Similar to Monday, ProofHub offers a great suite of tools for organizing and managing projects, as well as offering a useful internal communication tool.

In fact, ProofHub sets itself apart as a versatile project planning software merging diverse features like task management, time tracking, discussions, and document sharing all under one roof. You've got all the things you'd expect here like Gantt charts, instant chat and comments, file sharing, time tracking and much more.

One of the huge attractions of ProofHub over other tools is that there is no 'per user' price. Just simple package prices for unlimited users, with the lower priced option offering slightly less functionality. With integrations available across popular apps, ProofHub is a one-stop-shop for all project management needs.

Summary: A hub for organizing projects with centralized team communication options, at a simple price.

Managing internal communications, video meetings, project management and more with our pick of the best apps and software tools for corporate communication.

Discover the ultimate tookit for seamless corporate communication with our roundup of the 21 best apps out there.

When do people enter your office? When do they tend to walk down the hallways, congregate at the water cooler, or head towards the exits? When are they focused, walking purposefully, talking on their phones, or chatting with colleagues? When are they less engaged, looking around as they walk?

Foot traffic data is critical for retail locations, the difference between not having enough checkout lines open or having far too many rotisserie chickens ready for sale. But it’s also crucial offices, warehouses, and other work environments—as it tells you when and where’s the best place to put your company messages.

Your company will spend over a thousand dollars on each TV you add to your workplace. And you’ll spend hours crafting the perfect company TV content to engage your team and get them to notice your signage. It’s worth taking the time to gather data to inform your signage placement—and content timing.

Here’s how to track footfall and use it to decide where to place your company TVs.

Queues snake around the corner of a local coffee shop at 8:45AM and 12:45PM. You could confirm that by waiting nearby—or, equally easily, you could guess the time based on when most companies nearby start work and break for lunch (and human psychology around when one needs a caffeine boost).

Similar intuition works for your office. That’s likely how you’ve picked the spots to place your company signage. Your lobby’s an obvious spot, as are hallways leading towards your office or restrooms, and your break room or water cooler.

But how many people actually walk through each area? What time are they most likely to come through?

Guessing’s not enough for screen placement in larger workspaces or more precise signage content scheduling. For that, you’ll need to start counting.

The cheapest way to track footfall is also the most monotonous: Manually. You’ve likely seen someone at a museum or other public building clicking as people enter the building, then again as they leave. You could do the same at your office with a $3-$10 click counter, or a free smartphone app.

This wouldn’t be the best idea for extended tracking. You’ll spend more time, clicking every time someone walks by, than you’ll save in hardware and setup costs. But, if you pay attention while clicking, you might get enough data to inform your signage that would make it worth your while.

Don’t just track how many people walk by. Note other things. How are they walking? Purposefully, rushing through a space, or slowly, looking around as they walk? Are they alone or in groups? Which teams are most represented at which times?

Do this on a few different days at the times when people are most likely to walk by (mornings, noon, and evenings), and you’ll both have footfall numbers and the data on how much of a chance you have at getting attention from the people walking by.

Automatically track footfall with sensors

A less tedious method is a silent version of the ding-dong sensors that announce every entrance into a minimart. 

They are typically called people counters and come in two parts: A sensor and a transmitter. Place them on opposite walls or sides of a doorway. Then whenever someone walks by, the sensor will add another number to its rolling count. The cheapest sensors are small lasers, for around $40, that are typically used to count packages on a factory line. For around $200, you can get a more accurate infrared sensor designed to sense only people—and, depending on the model, detect direction (especially helpful to know how people are facing for ideal screen placement) and log results to a smartphone app. You could put one sensor in each location where you’re considering hanging a sign—and while someone walking through a hallway then entering a break room would get counted twice, you’d at least know how many times the hallway screens would get seen versus the break room’s signage.

Here, you’ll often only get daily traffic reports. You could hack around that by checking your sensor once per hour, and logging the count each time to graph your footfall changes throughout the day. Or, with more advanced sensor options such as the $89/month thermal-sensing Dor device, you can watch detailed stats on exactly when people walk through a doorway or hallway.

If your office already has security cameras, you might be able to get footfall data for free. Many security cameras can recognize when people walk past, then save a clip each time or log the total number of people who walked by. Or, pair any camera video feed (even one from a repurposed phone) with people counting software like Camlytics from $9/month (pictured above) or open-source counting tools like Supervision. That’s another way to track footfall—and, if you take the time to watch the footage, to get similar data that you’d get with manual footfall counting without having to camp out in the hallway. An even more advanced version would be to use webcam tracking paired with screens, as we did with Quivid in a study on digital signage effectiveness—a worthwhile investment for the highest-value screens in high-traffic locations.

If you use cameras, though, always check your local privacy laws and post any necessary notices that cameras are being used in the area. Also make sure your software anonymizes the data—something both Camlytics and Quivid offer—and ideally blur faces or obscure other identifiable data.

Use software and device data to estimate footfall

Your company’s routers provide another way to estimate footfall. Basic routers show a list of all devices connected to WiFi that could be checked manually similar to the cheapest people counting devices. More advanced company router equipment can log access times and track traffic on each router and repeater throughout the network—something that may already have the general footfall data you need. Or, you could get similar data from Bluetooth or WiFi-powered people counters that check for nearby devices—or could build a custom device tracker with a Raspberry Pi.

None of those options will tell you specifically how many people walk down a hallway or enter a specific room. They will, though, give you general data around what time people tend to arrive at work, where most people congregate in larger spaces, and which days have the most people in office.

You might also find similar data in your company’s software. The most direct way is with desk booking software, if your office lets your team book desks in an open floor plan space or reserve meeting rooms. Those together give you a precise view of how many people are in your office, and when they’re most likely to arrive.

Other apps might include more generalized office arrival time data. Slack, for example, tracks user presence to show if team members are currently online. You could track that manually; click the member count at the top of a channel and see who’s currently online. Or, better for logging times, use Slack’s API to log every time a team member’s status changes. That won’t tell you if people are in the office, though; they’ll show up online if they check Slack on the train. At best, it’s a supplemental way to add color to your footfall data (say, to estimate when most people walk away for a break, regardless of which direction they move). Retail locations could get better app-driven data by checking transaction times—and you could estimate where people frequent at which times based on the times they purchased.

Track footfall with digital signage and QR codes

With a bit of intuition paired plus some data gathering, you’ve got a general idea of where people move and when. Now, you need to figure out if your screens are getting their attention. 

You could do this with camera-based systems, as mentioned previously, potentially tracking footfall, dwell time, and attention together. Or, without any cameras, you could track your signage’s effectiveness with QR codes and surveys.

QR codes are the simplest option. ScreenCloud’s digital signage software includes built-in QR code tracking. Share a link on your screens with ScreenCloud’s built-in Links, Ask a Question, Canvas, or Webhooks apps, and ScreenCloud will turn it into a QR code automatically. You can then track how many times your QR codes were scanned in ScreenCloud’s Metrics tab.

ScreenCloud shows daily stats. For more granular tracking data, you could make a custom QR code in an app like Bitly. Or, you could make different slides—and corresponding links—for every hour of the work day. Schedule your signage slides then track the daily scan stats. That’ll help you know which hours people are most likely to see your signage (or, at least, which hours they’re likely to see it while being free enough to scan a QR code). It’ll also give you better stats on morning and evenings, say, since someone who scanned a slide in the morning isn’t likely to scan the same slide this evening.

Another option is to survey your audience. Put something interesting and unique on your signage during the hours you want to test, something that’ll catch your team’s attention and make them look twice, but that they’ll only have learned through that screen. Then, in Microsoft Teams or Slack, survey your team about something that was on your screens. You’ll quickly find out if people are paying attention to your signage—and with smart scheduling, you could even use that to estimate what times people pay attention the most.

With footfall data and attention surveys in hand, you’re ready to place smarter signage throughout your workplace. As you’re rolling out your signage and scheduling content, keep in mind that the most important content on your screens is what people want to see—not necessarily the messages your company wants to share. And if you keep things interesting and focused on the times when people are most likely to see your screens, you’ll have the best chance at fighting screen blindness

Once you’ve rolled out your newly optimized screens, try running your footfall surveys again. See if traffic patterns have changed, or if people are still noticing your screens months later. Change things up; a screen that’s getting ignored might get a better return on investment in a new location. The only thing static is your company’s need to get your messaging across to your team. Everything else is up for experimentation.

Image Credits: Coffee Shop queue photo by Michał Parzuchowski; header photo by Sara Kurfeß

Where do people walk around your workplace the most? To find that out—and decide where to place signage and when to show content—you need to run a footfall survey. Here's how.

How to use Footfall Data to Decide When to Schedule Digital Signage Content

If you’re looking for an easy way to turn your TV screen into a live presentation board, you’re in luck because you're only a few steps away from making it happen through digital signage. Setting up digital signage PowerPoint on your screen is now almost as easy as setting up a regular PowerPoint presentation.

There are tons of easy ways you can do it (we're talking everything from simple slides to multi-page signage presentations) and helpful tools that basically hold your hand through the entire process. The best part is that you won't need extra wires or the entire IT department.

So let’s go down a list of all the things you need to know, starting with the easiest of them all –  setting up your hardware.

Setting up your digital signage for presentations - step-by-step

Step 1: Get reliable digital signage software

The very first step is to sign up for a reliable digital signage solution like ScreenCloud; it’s the easiest way to share presentations on your screens. What’s great is that you can get started without commitment. Simply sign up for the 14-day free trial (no credit card required).

You’ll then need to download the ScreenCloud app to your device, and that’s it; you’re ready to begin sending presentations directly to your digital screens. 

Are you using smart TVs for your PowerPoint presentations or screens without wifi? Don’t worry because they are both really easy to set up. If you’re using a regular TV, you can easily connect it to the internet using an Amazon Fire Stick or a similar device. 

We also have the Station P1 Pro device if you’re looking for something with greater performance and a more seamless setup. The device is powered by ScreenCloud OS and has all kinds of features that’ll help you turn any TV into a PowerPoint digital signage screen in no time. Learn more about the Station P1 Pro here.

If you have a smart TV, you don’t need any other hardware; simply turn on the wifi, and your PowerPoint for digital signage is ready to go. You can also learn more about turning a TV into digital signage here.

Step 3: Prepare your PowerPoint presentation

The chances are that you already have your presentation ready to go. This may be an update for the next team meeting to get everyone on the same page or a slideshow to update the rest of the company on what your team has been up to.

We also see a lot of companies using digital signage for everything from retail wayfinding to healthcare center waiting room displays. Whatever your goals, just have your powerpoint digital signage slides ready as we move on to the specific ways you can share presentations.

3 ways to share digital signage presentations

Option 1: Native upload, best for PowerPoint, Keynote or PDF

For Powerpoint presentations, Keynote and PDF files you can upload your presentation directly to the ScreenCloud Signage content management system. You only need to head to your Content Library and click “Upload”.

Next, you can select your presentation and upload it to your library. ScreenCloud supports powerpoint files including JPEG, GIF, PNG, SVG, PDFs and Office/iWorks formats to make uploading your presentation easier.

The best bit about this option is that there’s no middleman, no converting files or uploading onto USBs. Just a simple, cloud-based formula for taking your presentation and putting it on your digital signage display.

If you use your ScreenCloud CMS for digital signage content creation, this may also be the best option for you as it uses an interface you’re already familiar with.

Next, we have what many consider to be the holy grail: An app made solely to display Google Slides presentations on your digital signage displays. 

Google Slides is a free and often brilliant way to create slides and presentations. It's intuitive, supports graphic images, and comes with tons of powerpoint templates. It’s one of our favorite tools at ScreenCloud, as everyone can be in the document at once, making collaboration super easy and trackable.

We have a Google Slides app integration with all our digital signage software plans. That means you won’t have to visit your CMS first before connecting to your screens. This integration, coupled with the Google slides’ functionality, is one of the easiest ways to create web-based slides and digital presentations that can be sent directly to your digital signage screens. It can be used for anything from a corporate presentation to a company update, a report or even just a series of text and image displays.

With the ScreenCloud Google Slides app you can:

Publish any Google Slides presentation to your screen

Set the duration per slide in seconds and the total duration to show

Make live updates, which filter through automatically to your screen

To start, install the ScreenCloud Google Slides integration here. You’ll need to make the presentation you wish to share in Google Slides publicly visible (more info on how to do that here). Once visible, you can add your Google Slides presentation to the Google Slides app in one click and preview how it will look once up on the screen.

The true beauty of Google Slides app is that once your powerpoint content is live you can make changes to it at any time and the results will automatically update on screen.

If you use Microsoft PowerPoint, this option isn't ideal for you. You could consider a direct upload instead.

If you need a bit extra with your PowerPoint for digital signage content, there are other apps available, like the Microsoft Power Bi app. This app takes company data and turns it into a visual display, before allowing you to publish your report online.

It takes a little playing around with, but for visual displays of information, this app gives a lot of scope to what you can do.

Potential challenges with PowerPoint digital signage presentation

If you’re using option 1, you could run into some compatibility issues if your presentation isn’t in a supported format. The solution is easy though; simply save the file in a format like PDF or JPEG and try again.

You may also find managing the presentation remotely to be a challenge depending on the nature of your setup. The solution is as simple as logging in to your screen cloud CMS and controlling the presentation from there.

Sometimes, you may experience interruptions with your powerpoint for digital signage that don’t make sense. You have everything set up right, but for some reason, there's significant lag in the responsiveness, or nothing works at all. One solution you could try is to double check your internet connection. Restart your router, and make sure the wifi network is strong. 

Once you have everything set up, you can use powerpoint with your digital signage to do everything. That includes

Display jpg and png images, and even pdf documents

These may seem like hyper specific use cases, and they are. But keep in mind that with ScreenCloud’s digital signage solution, there are no limits to the kinds of presentations you can get on your screen. Start your 14-day free trial and see how easy it is to create digital signage content.

From Microsoft Excel to Google Sheets and many more, there are various ways to share a presentation using digital signage. Find out how in our guide.

How to create presentations using digital signage

It’s like the screen wasn’t even there. No matter what Apple training specialist Kevin Mason tried, no one was signing up for training classes advertised on a screen in his repair shop. And it wasn’t for lack of trying. He tried “different fonts, animations, catchy phrases and even flashing lights.”

His customers were seemingly “totally blind to anything with a screen,” relayed Mason. They’d walk by the screen, but would automatically tune out anything on it.

Screen blindness affects us all. We’re so accustomed to TVs and other screens in lobbies, elevators, office walls, billboards, and more that we tune them out without even thinking about it. When’s the last time you noticed what was on the TV in a lobby? That’s screen blindness.

Screen blindness risks making your company’s TVs and digital signage less effective than they could be—or, potentially, virtually invisible to your team. Here’s how to combat screen blindness, and build company TVs that both get noticed and deliver value to your company.

From Banner Blindness to Screen Blindness

Screen blindness—visually ignoring entire screens—started on a far smaller scale as banner blindness. From the earliest days of the internet, we instinctively learned to skip over banner ads to get to the important content. The habits became so deeply ingrained that they kept us at times from finding the data we were looking for in the first place.

“The biggest problem I had switching to DuckDuckGo,” said Letterpress founder Loren Brichter of the alternate search engine, “was completely missing the top couple of results because I’m so habitualized to think they’re ads.”

Over decades of scanning Google’s 10 blue links, Brichter, like most of us, learned to skip the first few results assuming that they’re advertisements. The top results were still there. His eyes quickly scanned past them, with muscle memory directing his eyes to what normally would be the first organic results.

It’s a phenomena discovered shortly after the internet and personal computing went mainstream. “People searching for specific information on the web tend to ignore large, colorful items that are clearly distinguished from other items on the page,” found a 1997 study, in one of the earliest cases of what the next year would be labeled banner blindness. It’s a phenomena that has continued—and, perhaps, intensified, as a 2018 Nielsen Norman Group study found—to this day.

Ads in the early 90’s were bright, colorful banners. Billboards, of a sort, along the top or sides of websites. Relevant ads—a hotel ad in a travel article, say—might get noticed, but irrelevant ads quickly taught us to ignore them. Marketers fought back, adding animation, flashing text, dancing babies. Nothing worked long term. One irrelevant ad that slowed down our browsing experience and our brains would start ignoring that new design.

Ads weren’t the only content affected; “‘banner’ blindness can occur with text items that do not look like advertisements,” too, found Rice University researchers. “One item separated visually from everything else on a web page may be completely ignored by web searchers, even by searchers who are deliberately searching for the information provided in that item,” they wrote.

The same applied outside of the web. We tune out TV commercials automatically, notice players more than the ads around a stadium’s field, drive past billboards and directional signs alike with scarcely a notice, scarcely notice airplane safety demonstrations before takeoff. We’re blind to all but what we think contains what we’re looking for.

No wonder it’s so easy to ignore messages on office signage.

“Users don’t look around much,” concluded Jakob Nielsen in a 2012 study for his eponymous research group. 

Banner and screen blindness alike aren’t new human conditions. Much like tunnel vision, the health condition with actual peripheral vision loss, screen and banner blindness are a form of selective attention. You focus on what’s right in front of your eyes, and ignore everything else to the point of not seeing it at all.

“Selective attention is really a survival instinct,” wrote Nielsen. “If people had to pay attention to all stimuli in the environment, they'd never get anything done.”

It’s not specifically about tech, screens, and ads. Science writer Gabriel Popkin discovered what he called “tree blindness”—the phenomena of walking by trees daily without really noticing them, without attention taken up by conversations or smartphones. We’d miss the forest for our screens.

We’ve evolved to focus on what’s most important and to ignore things less deserving of our attention. Yet the same skill that in the wild helps us ignore the sound of wind and notice the sound of a predator is what makes your customers and team ignore important information on screens.

How to earn attention and fight screen blindness

So you could build an animatronic tiger that jumps out whenever people walk by your office TV. That’d get their attention, all right, until you fool them twice and they learn to ignore the commotion.

But there’s something to the idea. Unexpected objects are more likely to be noticed at first, until quickly they become expected—and ignored. A new construction site grabs your attention the first time you see it. New content on a billboard you’ve driven past a hundred times, though, is less likely to get your attention.

That means you need to start out strong when you first roll out digital signage. You have a tiny window of time to earn and keep your team’s attention, before they build up change blindness, the “failure to notice something different about a display.”

Which means you have to build your office TV with the insights gained from decades of fighting banner blindness and selective attention.

1. Place important content in the center of the screen.

“It is better to not place the ‘important’ items at the top because the user looks there last,” found the original Rice University study on banner blindness.

That’s because people tend to “start viewing the page in the center, and examine the very top and bottom only after they determine what they want is not located in the center.”

Important content, though, might not be your companies’ core messaging. It might be time, weather, news, sports scores, and other things your team will look up on their phone when they have a moment of downtime. The best content for your company TV is things people want to see.

Put that front-and-center, right from the first day you roll out signage. The unexpected TV will get noticed, the content will keep their attention, and you’ll have won the first battle in staving off screen blindness.

2. Put messages that need to be noticed near content people are looking for

You’ve caught the viewer's attention with your core content in the center. Now, put the important thing you want people to see nearby.

As the Gestalt law of proximity states, “items that are close to each other are assumed to be part of a group and thus related in function.”

Imagine an article with a title, then an image, then a paragraph of text. Most people will automatically skip the title, assuming its placement makes it irrelevant. Simply grouping all of the text together helps it escape the peripheral and get noticed by even the most tunnel visioned-person.

3. Format important messages similar to the content people want to see

Content that looks drastically different from other content will be ignored as irrelevant. Just as with banner blindness of old, flashy animations, bright colors, and cute fonts on your signage will be more likely to be ignored as people will assume it’s an ad. Even placing content on the top or right of a website is enough to make people ignore it.

It’s bad enough that people will not see things they actually want to see, if they look different enough. “One item separated visually from everything else on a web page may be completely ignored by web searchers, even by searchers who are deliberately searching for the information provided in that item,” found the original banner blindness study.

The trick, the Nielsen Group found, is to group important information together with the same styling. Make your company’s important information look similar to the general interest updates you’re sharing, and people will notice them. Use separate branding and colors, and people will notice only the content they want and learn to ignore your more important messages.

4. Never trick your audience, or they’ll learn banner blindness

Now imagine you have a company-wide message you want to make sure everyone notices. You could cancel all other programming on your company TV, and make a bright red sign that grabs everyone’s attention.

They’ll notice, alright. But if the message isn’t truly critical—an emergency announcement, say, when there’s truly an emergency—then people will learn to avoid your tricks in the future.

That’s a “hot potato” problem. Burn them once, and their brain will remember far longer than you’d expect. When there’s a real emergency, they’ll have developed screen blindness enough that they might not even see the warning.

Build better team signage that people want to notice

It’s not that your team purposely avoids reading the signage you’ve invested time and resources into. It’s that the same selective attention that helps them focus on projects and get work done is also what keeps them from noticing irrelevant signage and bulletin boards back in the day.

Simply switching your announcements to a screen isn’t enough. Your team will quickly develop screen blindness if the updates are undifferentiated from a bulletin board.

So show them what they want to see. Put interesting things in the center of the screen—especially when you first roll out signage, and at the times of day when people enter the office and first see your screens. Put important, less interesting things nearby, formatted similarly. And never take your team’s attention for granted.

Keep those principles for beating banner blindness in mind, and you’ve got a chance at avoiding screen blindness in your team, too.

Image Credit: Header photo by Artur Voznenko via Unsplash; Tunnel photo by Jaanus Jagomägi via Unsplash

It’s all too easy to overlook routine HR messages on bulletin boards and screens—the best example of selective attention at work. Here’s how to fight screen blindness and selective attention and get those important messages noticed.

Screen Blindness: How to Overcome Selective Attention and Get Work Messages Noticed

You’ve got messages to share. Important updates that everyone should know about. Deadlines. Disaster prevention tips. Details that you can’t afford for anyone to miss.

Which is the primary reason you invested in digital signage in the first place. You needed a better internal communications strategy, and TVs in your office seemed like a good fit. It’s nice that you can include the weather and news on your signage, but that’s not worth the time and expense of putting screens in your office and store. But increased productivity, better understanding of company goals, internal communications everyone pays attention to, and a boost in that all-essential company culture? That feels worth the investment.

There’s only one problem. When’s the last time you paid attention to the screens in your grocery store? How often do you learn new things from screens in waiting rooms, or even notice the ad screens in a train? Odds are low that you can remember a single thing that you saw on a screen.

Except for one place: The airport. You’re rushing to your gate, and wait, what gate was that again? You instinctively look for a bank of vertical TVs, the first time you’ve purposefully looked for a public TV in weeks. And there it is: You need to go to gate B33, boarding time’s in a half hour, and it’s a 10 minute walk from here. Oh, and incidentally, there’s a notice about the mobile passport app—you make a mental note to download that sometime later.

That’s when screens are effective. Productive. A game changing part of your internal communications strategy, even, for teams that are struggling to get their message across. You need a TV in your office that people will pay attention to, that they’ll want to look at—and that gives you a chance to share your more important messages, too.

What can you do to encourage employees to read announcements? It starts with what the viewer wants.

Imagine a menu sign in your favorite coffee shop. It’s 8:33AM, you’re rushing to work, and you need caffeine—and could be persuaded to buy a muffin to go, but would be equally content with just a cup of coffee. You want to see coffee options, sizes, and prices front-and-center. If the entire screen changes out and shows muffin and donut promotions, and the coffee prices are nowhere to be seen, you’re going to be annoyed. And the next time you grab a coffee, you’ll be less likely to even look at the menu board; who knows if it’ll have the info you need, anyhow? If, instead, the menu is there as expected, with a notice about 20% off baked goods on the side, you might be tempted to go ahead and grab that muffin, too.

Same in your workplace. Your team doesn’t exactly want to see HR notices, company calendar updates, and reminders about the fire drill this Thursday. If they did, they’d have stood around the bulletin board, reading every flyer and print-out.

They didn’t then, and they’re unlikely to do so now, even if your ads are on shiny new 65” screens. “Most people don’t want to hear from most companies most of the time,” says Harvard Business Review, and that goes for their employer as much as any other company.

They do, however, want to see things that interest them.

General interest things, especially those you’re pretty sure have your entire team’s interest. Sports scores for your local teams, especially around important games. The weather and transit schedules, especially before your team heads out on their lunch break or is ready to go home. News. Trending topics on social media. Finance, including exchange rates and stock market data, depending on your industry. If there's anything public that most people on your team check on their phones, that thing should be on your signage—even if it's not related to work.

Company stuff, even, can keep people’s interest if it’s actually interesting. Your team, by and large, doesn’t care about forms and paperwork; we’ll get to those more critical updates later. Even safety announcements can start to feel nagging. But your staff does care about their colleagues, so company event photos and videos are worth sharing right after an event (just don’t keep them up forever). They care about their work, so praise on social media and good reviews on Google Maps are absolutely worth sharing. Employees want to do a good job, and be recognized for it, so shout-outs and congratulations are a great fit. Even direct work-related things, data and graphs that your team would otherwise have to check on a piece of equipment or surface pages deep in software, can be time saving enough that your team would learn to rely on company screens for that bit of info rather than digging for it on their own. More boring than the news, but also more relevant to their lives than HR updates.

The best internal communication strategy is telling people what they want to hear

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Internal Communications - Page 4

9 Effective Internal Communication Tools

7 Internal Communication Trends 2019

How To Create Better Corporate Communications

10 Uses for Noticeboard App

Using Digital Signage in Employee Communications

5 Examples of Digital Signage Displays For Better Internal Communication

How it works:

How it works:

1. Hardware

2. Software

3. Support & Services

Industries

Case Studies

Content

Internal Communications - Page 4

9 Effective Internal Communication Tools

7 Internal Communication Trends 2019

10 Tips to Share Information More Effectively

How To Create Better Corporate Communications

10 Uses for Noticeboard App

Using Digital Signage in Employee Communications

5 Examples of Digital Signage Displays For Better Internal Communication