Article

An observation of modern photo kiosk usage

Executives from Storefront.com share takeaways from their observations in the photo trenches.

July 15, 2013

By Gary Pageau

The photo specialty retailer Precision Camera, based in Austin, Texas, held a grand opening for a new superstore last month. During the festivities, two members of the kiosk provider Storefront.com were on hand to witness how customers used their kiosks — and they came away with a greater understanding of modern photo kiosk usage.

Takeaways on kiosk usage

Larry Adams, the senior vice president of Storefront.com, said photo kiosks still struggle to overcome a few archaic notions.

"The idea customers come to a retail photo kiosk to do simple things just needs to go away," Adams said. "The idea a photo kiosk has to be toned down needs to go away. That may have been the right place to be in 2002 or 2003, but 10 years later, kiosks are just part of everyone's life."

Given the massive exposure that society has to interactive technologies, such as automated kiosks in airline ticket counters, parking plazas and bank ATMs, Adams said that today's customers have a keen understanding of how to use the technology to their benefit.

Joe Hill, program director at Storefront.com, noticed a woman using one of the photo kiosks for six hours, sorting through photographs she took during a recent safari in Africa

"This particular lady ... had four full memory cards she was going through, image by image," said Hill.

While Hill conceded that such usage was probably not the customary behavior retailers are looking for, in the case of that particular customer, those six hours were well invested. But given the specific reason for her time investment, would she be inclined to come back?

"The answer is yes. I highly doubt she spends six hours there every time she comes to Precision, but the fact the software is as simple and quick as you need it to be or as sophisticated as you need it to be, that is what is valuable there."

In general, Adams sees a trend in larger order sizes in photo kiosks, fueled by enormous media cards.

"The order size of photo kiosks is growing rapidly around the world," said Adams. "We're seeing orders of more than 5,000 prints in Europe going to fulfillment. Order sizes have skyrocketed because media cards are so much bigger now. I saw people bringing in DVDs — which I thought were gone — but there were several clients who brought them in. I was of the opinion you wouldn't need optical media readers in the next generation of photo kiosks. That seems to be proven wrong, at least from an input standpoint."

Workflow and UI observations

Even though there is no standard set of global icons, many have become common in everyday use, Adams said, adding that the icons on photo kiosks should match what people are accustomed to.

An example would be the Wi-Fi icon or the pause/play/rewind buttons, which all have specific meanings in people's smartphones, tablets and other devices. Trying to use those symbols on a photo kiosk to do something else seems to be confusing, Adams said.

"We had some custom icons, for example, that we thought carried the message better than they probably did. In one place, we use an icon to expand a selection, and that looked very much like a 'play' button on a media device."

According to Hill, everybody has their own intuitive way to get to the finish line, but it isn't always the way the developers envision.

"We need to allow the user to get to the end of the order in as many ways as possible," said Hill. "Of course, when you're in the software industry, there's always the way you see to get to the finish line, but that's not necessarily true for people who use software. That is something we're going to look at."

Adams added that the Precision Camera visit caused them to realize that developing a photo kiosk workflow is not a linear process and that consumers have different thought patterns than developers.

"Kiosk software is somewhat linear: Choose an image, choose some sizes or products, then choose some quantities," Adams said. But at that point, a consumer may want to choose another size or edit the image instead of doing it earlier in the process, he said.

"There should be more options at every place in the process, to get you where you want to go," Adams said.

Gary Pageau is the former publisher of PMA magazine. He is currently with InfoCircle Content Marketing Services and a regular blogger for Kiosk Marketplace.

Read more about photo kiosks.