"In Your Face"
Tips and Hints for Successful Kiosk Implementation
by Dave Heyliger
Visitation Time Strategies
Introduction
There are many different types of kiosks: kiosks that generate or dispense revenue (vending kiosks), kiosks that display or dispense information (informational kiosks), kiosks that collect data, money, and/or orders (collection kiosks), and kiosks that do one or more of the above functions (combination kiosks). The functionality of these implementations directly dictates how long you want your kiosk visitors to remain at the kiosk.
This month's topic will examine visitation time strategies, and hopefully help you evaluate whether your kiosk need to be an "in-and-out" experience, or whether it would be more beneficial if visitors "camped-out" at your kiosk. Let's take a look.
The "Trouble" With Kiosks…
The "trouble" with kiosks is that they are basically a one-to-one medium. Unlike radio or television (for example), kiosks tend to be extremely personal and geared towards a single person and/or a very small group of individuals. This one-to-one relationship means that while your kiosk is in-use, you might be missing out on additional visitations. And high visitation is likely to be a key - or the key - to successful deployment.
A Simple Visitation Self-Evaluation
Want to evaluate your visitation strategy? Try this: ask yourself "How long am I willing to wait - behind someone else - to use this kiosk?" Then ask three of your friends. Usually this answer is the same: not long. The only exception to this rule may be the Automated Teller Machine. In this case, you pretty much have to wait because you need the service. I'm not aware of too many kiosks that contain this same sense of need.
When in Doubt: "In-and-Out"
Regardless of your actual implementation, an excellent kiosk-based rule of thumb is "get in - get out", meaning give the user what they want, give it to them fast, give it to them easy, and then don't give them anything else - except perhaps a nice thank-you and too-da-loo. This approach usually works because it keeps visitation numbers high. It also works because usually people aren't willing to wait in line for very long.
Factors that hinder the "in-and-out" philosophy include the following:
- Information Overload - providing too much information
- Menu / Choice Overload - providing too many choices and/or menu options, and
- Metered Access - providing an undefined and unlimited time-usage model
"Information Overload" Strategies
If your kiosk is information-based, then your design strategy - with respect to visitation time - becomes a bit tricky. Your visitation goal is most definitely "in-and-out", since success is measured by the number of users who access the kiosk in a given time span. However, your content goal may be to include as much information as possible - or at least provide a listing for everybody. A good example of this is a tourism-based kiosk: you want to include all the restaurants in the area.
In this type of situation, your key to success would be a combination of a well-defined, easy-to-use menu system in conjunction with similar-looking informational snippets on the same screen. An excellent design strategy for success in this situation would be to use a database as the content holder, and just a few screens as the content display mechanism. This strategy provides the user with a "same look and feel" interface for each component of information. By providing a constant interface, your users won't have to spend additional time learning the interface, and may focus on obtaining the information quickly - and then leaving. This strategy also assists in kiosk updating procedures: just replace the database and you're done!
"Menu / Choice Overload" Strategies
Usually if your kiosk implementation is comprised of a large series of choices, your strategy here is to re-think your design and/or menu structure. Ask yourself if all choices are necessary. Further examine your breakdown and see if you can't combine multiple choices into a single category. By providing a user with limited choices expedites the visitation process, and may actually enhance the kiosk experience.
"Metered Access" Strategies
In these situations the strategy revolves around revenue. It may be that you don't care if someone camps out at your kiosk - so long as that someone is paying for it. However, if your kiosk provides a metered service that usually requires a short amount of time (E-Mail access, for example), consider streamlining the processes involved. This can be done through software, hardware, minimized default access times, and an optimized menu.
About the Author
Dave Heyliger (heyliger@rockmedia.com) is founder and president of Rocky Mountain Multimedia, Inc. (http://www.rockmedia.com), and has been creating kiosk software and interface solutions for hundreds of clients since 1993. Feel free to check out this and any previous article contained within this series by visiting the online section at
http://www.rockmedia.com/kioskmagazine.html.
|
|
         
Glenwood Springs, Colorado 303.933.7300 Dave Heyliger | heyliger@rockmedia.com |