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Reaching the masses: making self-service devices accessible
Hardware and software designers constantly fine-tune their work to build a kiosk that is usable by as many people as possible. Satisfying government requirements and user needs while keeping costs under control and designs workable has become a major balancing act.
July 31, 2005 by James Bickers — Editor, Networld Alliance
At 6'4", Ben Wheeler is taller than the average American male. Statistically, that average man - wherever and whoever he is - stands 5'10". Even with the standard deviation of 4 inches, Ben is still outside the norm.
"A few years back, I just accepted the fact that a kiosk is not going to be a comfortable fit for me personally," said Wheeler, who spends his days thinking about kiosks as director of product marketing for APW: I-engage Kiosks.
Wheeler said that kiosk companies should keep the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 in the forefront of their minds when planning any project. "ADA compliance should always have been an issue with kiosks," he said.
"APW: I-engage takes ADA compliance dead seriously," he added. "I am pretty sure that my kiosk engineers can recite the ADA guidelines for wheelchair approach in their sleep."
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Wheeler said that there will never be - cannot be - a kiosk that is comfortable for everybody. The proper approach then, he believes, is to start by meeting legislative requirements. Once those are met, then work on making the design as accessible and convenient as possible for the remainder of the intended audience.
"I can't stress this enough, accessibility has nothing to do with ease of use for the masses," Wheeler said. "It has to do with compliance. If you have this mindset, achieving the best of both worlds is possible. If you throw a monitor at the height that suits you, then you don't understand accessibility in the ADA sense and you will never meet the law eye-to-eye."
Keeping things consistent
According to Dave Barker, principal strategist and member of strategic design and brand integrity for Diebold, part of the answer lies in keeping sizes and positioning of elements as consistent across models as possible.
"For instance, a blind person can expect the modules to be in the same place on all ATMs, regardless of the model or whether it's a drive-up or through-the-wall," he said.
Barker also pointed out that disabilities come in many shapes and sizes, so it is important to get feedback from the people you are actually trying to serve.
"We would use our general sampling," he said. "We would ask for someone that has arthritis or someone in a wheelchair to try out our products. I can't speak for others, but in general, I think we do that better than anybody else."
From ADA to HAVA
ADA lays out some stiff requirements that apply to all companies involved in the design and manufacture of kiosks. But for companies working to perfect the touchscreen voting machine, a whole new set of hurdles was introduced in October 2002 when President Bush signed the Help America Vote Act.
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The Act brought with it three goals and methodologies: create a new federal agency to serve as a clearinghouse for election information, provide funds to states so they can improve their election systems and replace outdated hardware, and create minimum standards in "several key areas of election administration."
It's that last one where the rubber meets the road for kiosk developers. HAVA requires that voting machines be accessible to all voters, in every state. That calls for some advanced utility and functionality from both a hardware and software perspective.
It has been a bumpy road for manufacturers. With states allowed to make their own decisions on election methodologies, standards are not only Byzantine in their complexity; they are changing at breakneck speed. The non-profit watchdog group VerifiedVoting.org maintains an updated index of legislation and litigation regarding paperless voting in all 50 states (see sidebar below).
Although far too complex an issue for any simple answers, one notion does seem to be emerging: Whatever voting kiosks finally make it to the polls on future Election Days, they will have to have a paper trail or some other functionality that will allow a manual recount if necessary. The totally paperless election, it seems, is something the public simply will not abide.
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And HAVA requirements could have a positive effect on other self-service applications besides voting, according to Michael Shamos, official examiner of computerized voting systems for the state of Pennsylvania.
"Whatever has been done with voting machines, the same technology would be applicable to any touchscreen," he said. "These companies have put a tremendous amount of effort into developing interfaces for the disabled.
"There have been some wonderful developments from vendors in touchscreen systems. Touchscreens have become more and more reliable," Shamos added. "I conduct all sorts of tests - I try to fool the machine, I try to get it to cast votes for multiple candidates. In a well-designed system, none of these experiments succeed."
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