software
Tweak your designs
Designers of kiosk software often fall
into the trap of going back to standard
desktop design for certain functionality.
For example, they may choose to use
a touchscreen’s built-in keyboard for
some kind of data entry when a more
touch-friendly solution could’ve been
used. A specific example of this is a
visitor sign-in system I used recently.
When it came to leaving the building I
"A piece of kiosk software is
a failure if users don’t already
know how to use it when they
first pitch up at the kiosk"
40 KIOSK solutions
went to sign out. Now, in my opinion,
visitor sign-in systems should make the
experience of signing in and out more
pleasurable, or at least less annoying,
for visitors. As such, I was disappointed
when I was prompted to type my name
in again to sign out. Obviously typing
my name isn’t exactly a hardship, but
it’s slower than writing “2:45” – the
time I left – in a visitor book. That’s
particularly true as the screen was bolt
upright and I’m fairly tall, so I missed the
space between my first and last names.
Excuses, excuses, right! That meant my
name wasn’t found and I had to type it
again, this time with the space.
I’ve designed plenty of visitor
management systems over time. In that
time I’ve learned that asking people
to type their name when they leave a
building has one main effect – people
don’t sign out. This is obviously a
problem for security, health & safety