Display Windows 101: Four things to consider when designing a display window

A display window allows communication, interaction, and feedback between end users and your product. By selecting the right display window, you ensure optimum conditions for this interaction throughout the lifecycle of your product, in the operating environment that it was developed for. The right solution maximizes usability, performance, and robustness. In addition, a well-designed display window is a key part of the product’s overall design and therefore supports your brand.

So how do you reap these benefits? By focusing on readability, protection, durability, and design. In the following, we will dive a little deeper into each of these key factors.

Enhancing and optimizing the readability of the display is a key priority. End users must be able to read the content (and possibly interact with it) in all lighting conditions that your product will be exposed to. If these conditions are not particularly challenging, a clear display window will often be sufficient. In other applications, you need to take external light sources into account – particularly outdoors, where varying sunlight or glaring streetlights can make it difficult to read and interact with the underlying display.

You can maximize readability by selecting the right base material and surface treatment:

• By selecting the right base material, you can maximize display contrast to facilitate content recognition.
• In high-brightness environments, adding an anti-glare or anti-reflective coating will reduce reflections from your display window.

Not sure what the difference is between anti-glare and anti-reflection? Then click here to read our article about it.

• In rough conditions, scratches and abrasion may reduce display readability over time. With a hard-coated display window, you can prevent or reduce scratches and abrasion (we’ll go further into detail about this later in the article).

In some operating environments, scratches on the display window are the least of your problems. Your product needs to withstand anything that the environment and your end users may throw at it, and the display window is no exception.

Get a complete overview of the design conditions, and then select a display window that matches them. Again, there are several factors to consider which influence your choice of display window material:

• For environments with extreme temperatures, you need a display window that will not crack or deform.
• Furthermore, if your device is going to be exposed to regular direct sunlight, it is worth considering a display window solution that can block out UV exposure, such as Glacier™ Sun Stop. This particular solution, for example, prevents almost all UV light rays from passing through the filter, meaning that the electronics underneath don’t malfunction and overheat because of sunlight exposure.
• If your product needs to withstand high humidity or dust, your display window solution must be able to withstand it and protect the electronics underneath.
• If your device is obliged to meet certain fire resistance or toxicity rating requirements, your display window naturally has to adhere to these classifications as well.
• Finally, if your product is at risk of tampering or vandalism, you should choose a display window material that can withstand rough treatment.

We helped INIT develop a vandalism-resistant passenger terminal – discover how by clicking here.

Adequately protecting your product helps you ensure its longevity. This is an important point since durability is another key factor in your selection process. The lifetime durability of your display window should match that of your entire product – and it must handle the same operating conditions as the entire product, so that you don’t have to reinstall a new display window to your device during its lifetime, causing excessive downtime and recurring maintenance costs.

In addition to the environmental factors mentioned above, you need to consider normal user interactions and regular cleaning and maintenance. Again, this has consequences for your choice of material and surface treatment:

• If your display window acts as a touch screen, you need it to be able to handle thousands of finger touches, possibly by users wearing gloves, rings, etc., or using various implements to tap the screen.
• Your display window might have to handle regular cleaning and/or disinfection. Design it to withstand the cleaning agent that will be used – and ask yourself what would happen if maintenance staff were to use a more abrasive cleaning agent.

Ascom’s handheld devices were designed with durability and ruggedized features in mind.

In many applications, visual design is a key consideration. The look and feel of a display are often important to the final product, and your display window should be designed and mounted accordingly. If, for example, you need a black panel design or a specific combination of colors for the display content and background, this dictates the color of your display window.

Click here to discover how we helped Profoto design their high-end blitz with requirements to the device’s design.

There are also other considerations when designing and manufacturing a customized display window. Often, you might, for example, need to consider the thermal expansion of your chosen material. In extreme temperatures, many materials expand or shrink, and if your design leaves little space for expansion in the joints between components, this is something to be aware of – particularly with large displays.

Whether this (or the many other factors to consider) is relevant or not, of course, depends on the specific application, but you can be sure that we think of everything when designing the display window of your exact project.

We hope this article has given you some insights into what you should consider when selecting a display window solution.

Do you have a project coming up where you need a display window? We would love to help you in finding the right solution.

You can always contact us if you want to draw on our expertise.

We’re ready to help you find a customized solution for your project.