As in the private sector, digitalisation is also a major topic for Swiss municipal administrations today. The digital transformation offers not only challenges but above all opportunities to make processes and workflows more efficient — including in digital citizen communication.

A good example of this are the notice boards you find in front of almost every municipal building. These are often glass cases filled with printed A4 sheets informing citizens about upcoming events, municipal council matters, etc. The notice boards fulfil an important purpose because they ensure information is accessible to everyone. That does not mean, however, that they must continue to exist in their current form.

Municipality of Root relies on digital notice boards

The project of the municipality of Root is a good example of what such a solution can look like. Instead of the glass case, we installed a 75 inch outdoor display. The screen stands on the village square, making information “barrier free” and accessible to all citizens.
For the screen layout, the municipality uses 10 individual sections (splits), which are divided into three categories:

• Building publications & general information
• Official notices
• Associations & events

This allows 10 posts to be displayed at once. If more than 10 posts are active at the same time, the system switches between them. The same applies to multi page PDFs.
The validity of each post is time controlled: editors decide during publication how long a post will be displayed. After the validity expires, it disappears automatically without requiring any manual action.
Even more efficient is fully automated integration of information via feeds. Using interfaces, for example, news from websites, social media, local newspapers, or internal tools can be integrated. In the Root project, we were able to integrate current building publications and the latest news directly from the website.
Another plus: with QR codes, posts on the screen can be supplemented with links. In Root’s case, citizens can retrieve additional details on building applications or further information about a news item.

Of course, the possibilities of Digital Signage go far beyond digital notice boards. On behalf of the city of Zug, we equipped schools in Baar with screens. In addition to current news and events, room occupancy is displayed on the screens.