Magpies love shiny things

30th MAY 2024

Everyone loves a shiny new idea, and it does seem like the council like to take the ideas people come up with.
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This is a good thing, but when the people who thought them up aren’t involved in bringing them into fruition is there a risk that the final product can end up having the feel of a sort of 'cheap chinese knockoff of the original vision'? - and who wants a Teddy with a sharp spike under its head or electronics that don’t work or last?
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A stroll through Ross-on-Wye today (30th May 2024) can serve as a reminder of this because outside Coffee #1 (great coffee, lovely people) one of the town’s two interactive Digital Signs seems dead, no life, rather resembling the inanimate black obelisk in “2001: A Space Odyssey”.
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After the usual street scene of everyone walking straight past the lifeless digital sign for ages, was it that finally someone was curious enough to look? Yes! Here we go! What were they doing? Maybe they were looking to try to put coins into the side of it or something like that, in an attempt to work out how to bring it to life? Naaaaaaaa, it turns out they were just leaning against it while they adjusted their shoe.
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Unfortunately, could it be the Digital Signs are an example of when something could have been done a lot better?
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The original idea for them it's said was suggested by a local expert in digital signage. So successful is their local company that they have massive contracts with brands like Kia and supply cutting-edge interactive digital signs, kiosks and systems - Local. Expert. Hugely knowledgeable.
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If only this company had been used? They were keen to help.

When the Council pursued the idea of digital signs, instead they commissioned companies that weren’t local. All that local specialist expertise it appears was ignored. One of the suppliers the council used seemed like a very poor choice and it seemed like a year before the 2nd Digital Sign (located on the Library wall) was even working at all. Perhaps the supplier disappeared or went under, who knows?
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Perhaps it would have been a lot wiser to work with the local experts in digital signage?
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Shop local?
Nope. In this case it appears not.
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Are the Digital Signs really used that much anyway?
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Well, anecdotally it is not often that people are seen using the Digital Signs, anyone who has sat outside Coffee #1 for a cappuccino and a bit of people watching will be able to tell you that.

It's probably to be expected that they won't get used much, after all, we do live in a world where almost everyone has a smartphone in their pocket! Holiday-makers tend to google the things they can do here before they arrive. Of course, for anyone that's left they would have to notice the digital signs in the first place and mostly probably don't (unless they accidentally bang into them).
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What about accessibility?

Well, if you’re short, or in a wheelchair, good luck using them! The ‘home button’ for the 'digital experience of delights' is right at the top of these huge objects, at approximately Tyson Fury’s eye-level, along with seven other navigation options. Maybe the council thought you could always ask a passer by to pick you up so that you could reach them?
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Then there are the physical locations to consider....

Both the one outside Coffee #1 and the other outside the Library are experienced by wheelchair users as if they are taking place in a real-life level of the classic computer game Donkey Kong, complete with slopes and steps.
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Due to basic newtonian principles, any wheelchair user that presses the screen a bit too hard outside Coffee #1 might accidentally find themselves rolling off down the steps right behind them - a bit like in the disastrous wheelchair scene at the end of 1980s comedy movie The Naked Gun (watch the clip here).
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What’s the lesson boys and girls?
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Could it be that perhaps it is worth using the people that come forward with ideas, to make sure something is done right?
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Unfortunately the money is spent either way. Hey-ho, who cares? After all, often it’s not council money that's spent but grant money from central government, so we don’t pay for it….. HEY!! Hang on yes we do! OI! We paid for that!