Pandemic Displays: Considering Hygiene on Public Touchscreens in the Post-Pandemic Era

Title of the Paper

Pandemic Displays: Considering Hygiene on Public Touchscreens in the Post-Pandemic Era

Bibliographic Information

• Field of Study: Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Public Touchscreen Design and Hygiene
• Keywords: Public displays, hygiene, pandemic, touch interaction, COVID-19

Research Background and Issues

• Identified Issues: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, public touchscreens may serve as vectors for germ transmission. However, existing research has not sufficiently addressed how to improve hygiene on public touchscreens.
• Significance: In the post-pandemic era, heightened concerns about hygiene are likely to persist. Public touchscreens need to provide users with information about hygiene conditions while balancing user experience and health risks.
• Research Motivation:
  • Current Situation: Public displays are an essential part of urban information interaction, but shared touchscreens pose potential risks for germ transmission, especially in the post-pandemic context.
  • Research Goals: To explore people's perceptions and needs regarding touchscreen hygiene and to design hygiene features that improve user experience.
• Research Questions:
  1. How do people perceive and consider hygiene issues on public touchscreens, and how has this been influenced by the pandemic?
  2. What hygiene information do users want to know before using public touchscreens?
  3. What are users' preferences for designs that display previous touchpoints? What is the optimal design?

Solutions

• Methods/Solutions:

  • Two-Part Study:
    1. Online Survey (n=286): To understand users' perceptions of public touchscreen hygiene, the impact of the pandemic on usage behavior, and the hygiene information they need.
    2. Prototype Design and Deployment (n=77): Development of a touchscreen prototype that visualizes touchpoints and hygiene-related information, followed by user feedback collection.
  • Designed Hygiene Features:
    • Visualization of touchpoints (using symbols such as fingerprints, viruses, and circles).
    • Display of the last cleaning time, specific locations touched by the previous user, and the total number of users who interacted with the screen.

• Innovations:

  • Integration of hygiene information with user interaction design, presenting hygiene data intuitively to users.
  • Exploration of user preferences for different touchpoint visualization designs (e.g., fingerprints, virus symbols, circular symbols) and their behavioral impact.

• Implementation Steps and Key Technologies:

  • Data Collection: Online questionnaires and user feedback on the prototype touchscreen.
  • Prototype Development: Using the Angular framework to develop a public touchscreen application with hygiene panels and touchpoint visualization features.
  • Deployment and Testing: Deploying the prototype in university public spaces and providing an online version for remote user testing.

Research Findings

• Specific Findings:

  • Except for "displaying the last cleaning time," users were relatively neutral about other hygiene information (e.g., previous touchpoints, user count).
  • Fingerprint symbols were the most favored design for touchpoint visualization due to their direct comprehensibility and neutral meaning. Virus symbols were considered overly alarming, while circular symbols were deemed too abstract.
  • Cleaning time information was regarded as the most important, as users considered it a key factor in assessing touchscreen hygiene.

• Strengths and Limitations:

  • Compared to existing public touchscreens, adding hygiene-related features significantly enhanced users' awareness and sense of safety. However, careful design is needed to avoid excessive warnings or panic.
  • Limitations include:
    • Prototype testing was constrained by pandemic-related restrictions, resulting in a limited user sample size.
    • Long-term impacts, such as the effect of hygiene information on user behavior and touchscreen usage frequency, have not been studied.

• Experimental or Evaluation Results:

  • Feedback from online and on-site users indicated:
    • People clearly want to know the cleaning time of the display, especially those concerned about the pandemic.
    • Fingerprint designs were the easiest to understand and effectively deterred users from touching areas with existing marks.
    • Virus designs reduced willingness to use the screen, while circular symbols raised issues due to their lack of specificity.

• Future Directions:

  1. Conduct long-term studies on the impact of hygiene measures on public touchscreen usage behavior.
  2. Enhance the accuracy and appeal of touchpoint visualization designs while protecting user privacy.
  3. Explore adaptive interface designs to reduce hygiene risks associated with frequently touched areas.
  4. Optimize cleaning alert mechanisms using artificial intelligence, such as automated cleaning notifications.

Design Recommendations

1. Cleaning Time Display: Provide simple cleaning time information in a corner of the interface without occupying excessive screen space. Modern tools can enable remote updates.
2. Neutral Design Guidelines: Use neutral symbols (e.g., fingerprints) instead of negatively connoted virus symbols to avoid inducing panic among users.
3. Adaptive Interface: Dynamically adjust the positions of interactive elements to reduce the risk of concentrated touch in specific areas while enhancing user privacy protection.
4. Transparent Touchpoint Display: Use fading designs or display overlapping touchpoints only in specific areas of the screen.

Conclusion

This study highlights the importance of hygiene management for public touchscreens in the post-pandemic era. Through data-driven design, the research proposes solutions to improve hygiene information on public displays. Results show that users have a strong demand for cleaning time information, and touchpoint visualization (especially fingerprint designs) helps users avoid high-risk areas. Future research should continue exploring long-term impacts and smarter hygiene management designs to enhance interaction safety and user experience.