Lobby Dashboard and Interactive Tablet Wall

A few months ago I had the opportunity to work with the Flixio team implementing a digital content strategy for one of their clients, Keynote.

Flixio had put together a great design for a 4-screen HD video wall that would hang in Keynote’s lobby and showcase a new product, their performance index API. Flixio had also designed a tablet wall that people could interact with and learn about the companies Keynote tracked. I helped build out both of these installations in two short weeks, in time for the grand opening of Keynote’s new office.

Video Wall

The video wall was created using Brightsign XD Interactive Players and their built-in Webkit-based browser. Each screen functioned independently and would update on a regular basis with fresh data from Keynote’s API. The technology used included Node Express as well as Chart.JS, w2ui, and Leaflet for the visualizations. The custom map was created using Mapbox Tilemill. The 4 screens together really showcase the power and performance of Keynote’s API and it was a lot of fun to put it together. Here are some photos of the main data viz screens.

Average load times by company
Average performance by city over the last hour
Load time comparison by company

Tablet Wall

The tablet wall was a completely different animal. A dozen or so tablets would hang on the wall displaying a different company logo and when touched would perform an animation. Very straightforward with CSS3. In addition, the touching of the tablet would set off an outward ripple effect to the other tablets causing them to transition in sequence. This required some synching between the tablets which was quickly accomplished using Node Express, and socket.io.

On-site Install

Over the course of two weeks, working closely with Flixio’s Technical Director and Director of Content, the video and tablet walls were refined and tested on the Brightsign hardware and finally installed on-site at Keynote. I setup a local production server and handed off administration to the technical team. Overall it was a fast-paced effort requiring a lot of coordination, and I think we pulled it off with grace. Keynote was pleased with the result and I really enjoyed working with the Flixio team.