Good digital signage content is short, up to date and suited to the place where the screen hangs. One message per slide, text you can read in a few seconds, and something new on a regular basis. Below you will find practical tips and ideas, along with what you use for them in Narrow.TV. No screen yet? Read what digital signage is first.

Start with the location and the viewer

The question is not "what do I want to say", but "who is standing here, for how long, and what helps them right now". That determines your content:

  • Passers-by, for example at a shop window: a few seconds of attention. One large image and a short heading.
  • Waiting customers in a queue or waiting room: minutes. Informative slides, video and a clock work well here. See also digital signage in the waiting room.
  • Customers making a choice at a counter: they are looking for something. A clear menu or price list beats mood images. Tips for that are in tips for a digital menu board.
  • Staff in a canteen or on the production floor: they see the screen every day. Change it often and keep it relevant.

Content ideas you can create straight away

With the elements in the Narrow.TV editor you can create things like:

  • Promotion or special offer: a product photo, a short heading and the price in a large font.
  • Price list: a price table with headings and lines for product and price, for example for treatments, classes or hire.
  • Welcome and practical info: opening hours, Wi-Fi name, where the toilets are, a welcome message for a group of visitors.
  • Product video or company film: your own video (MP4, WebM or MOV) or a video that is already on YouTube.
  • Weather: the ready-made weather template shows the city, date, current temperature and a six-day forecast. You only set the location.
  • Clock and date, or a world clock with its own time zone, for example at a reception with international guests or for branches abroad.
  • Ticker: a scrolling line of text at the bottom for short announcements, such as "Closed from 3pm on Friday".
  • Team and behind the scenes: photos of your staff, your workshop or your kitchen. That makes a business personal.

No inspiration or short on time? Start with a ready-made Narrow.TV template, filtered by screen type and orientation, and adjust the text and images. Save a slide that works well as your own template so your colleagues can reuse it.

Slide duration and playlist length

With Narrow.TV you set a duration of 5 to 60 seconds per slide, and the slides run as a playlist in a loop. A few rules of thumb:

  • Short message (image plus heading): 6 to 10 seconds.
  • Slide with more text or a price list: 15 to 20 seconds, or longer if people really need to look something up.
  • Video: keep the slide on screen as long as the clip, and keep videos short.

Keep the whole playlist limited. The longer the loop, the smaller the chance that someone who glances at it sees your most important message. Put your most important slide first and cut slides that no longer add anything. You change the order by dragging slides.

Choose a calm transition per screen: fade, zoom or slide. One consistent transition looks more professional than lots of movement.

Text, font and readability

General rules that apply to every screen:

  • One message per slide. Two promotions? Two slides.
  • Few words. A heading of a few words and a few lines of text below it at most.
  • Large enough. Test your slide at the distance people actually look from. What looks big on your laptop is small at four metres.
  • Contrast. Light text on a dark background or vice versa. Text on a busy photo is hard to read; put a solid shape behind it.
  • Two fonts at most per slide. The editor has 11; choose one for headings and one for body text and stick to them.

Use the preview in the dashboard to check that everything looks right before it appears on screen.

Images and video

Use images in the right aspect ratio. A portrait screen calls for portrait photos, otherwise a lot of space is left over. Upload images as JPEG, PNG, WebP or GIF and video as MP4, WebM or MOV, up to 200 MB per file. PDF and PowerPoint are not supported: export existing slides as images.

Video plays without sound by default, and in most businesses that is better anyway: you hear the screen all day long. Make videos that can be understood without sound, with text on screen. You can turn sound on if it really adds something.

If you want to show one video extra large across several screens at once, you can do that with Combined view.

Keep your content fresh

The biggest risk with digital signage is not bad content, but content that never changes. After a few weeks, regular visitors and staff look straight past a screen that always shows the same thing. What helps:

  • Fixed moments: for example, set aside ten minutes every Monday to replace one or two slides.
  • Seasons and holidays: a different background or promotion for each season.
  • Remove expired info immediately: a promotion that has ended costs you credibility.
  • Automatically updated elements: the clock, date and weather template are different every day by themselves.

Because you change everything in the browser and the screen updates within about a minute, replacing content is a small job. If you want to show data from your own system automatically, such as news or product data, read your own data on screens. All the editor's features can be found under digital signage software, and you can try it free for 30 days.

Frequently asked questions

How long should a slide stay on a digital signage screen?

For a slide with a short message, 8 to 10 seconds is usually enough; with more text or in a waiting room it can be longer. With Narrow.TV you set a duration of 5 to 60 seconds per slide.

How much text should you put on a slide?

As little as possible: one message per slide, a short heading and a few lines at most. People only look at a screen for a few seconds, often from a distance.

How often should you replace the content on your screens?

There is no fixed rule, but if the same slides stay unchanged for weeks, regular visitors get used to them and stop looking. Replace some of your slides regularly and keep time-sensitive information up to date.

Can I play video with sound on a digital signage screen?

Yes. With Narrow.TV video plays without sound by default, but you can turn the sound on. Separate audio files are not supported.