Article

The drive to customize

LCD screens and smaller computer components are presenting kiosk manufacturers more opportunities to create distinctive enclosure designs.

March 11, 2002

When the upscale Southampton, N.Y., import store Zeff approached kiosk manufacturer CeroView about creating a kiosk, the store did not provide a drawing or a sketch. It simply asked the Irvine, Calif.-based manufacturer to design a wall-mounted kiosk with multiple screens that would allow customers to view and order items.

Within three weeks CeroView delivered a three-inch thick, eight-foot high, wall-mounted kiosk with four flat monitors mounted on white lexicon. Resembling an abnormal picture frame-imagine a door with eight-by-ten glossies tacked on it-the screens display available merchandise. Customers can touch a screen to select an image. Order and mailing information are available on several screens.

CeroView owner Derek Fretheim envisioned a kiosk that would blend with its surroundings while still grabbing users.

"We strongly believe that the system needs to be attractive and aesthetically pleasing to the eye," Fretheim said.

CeroView custom designed a catalog-ordering form kiosk for Southampton, N.Y., import store Zeff.

Creating a kiosk that combines functionality and attractiveness is easier now than it was a few years ago. Thanks to liquid crystal displays and increasingly smaller computer components, manufacturers have more flexibility. Customization, as a result, is becoming more common.

Factura Corp. president Greg Swistak said most of his business is customized. His company is designing cabinets with changeable graphic frames. The kiosk's look, as a result, can change to match client needs.

"Many of the designs that we're working on currently are utilizing large graphic panels that are integrated into the kiosk itself that sort of explain to people why it's there and what function it has," Swistak said. "What we're doing a lot now is allowing the kiosk to transform itself with different color treatments, different graphic treatments, but the guts of it generally remain somewhat the same."

"Virtually everything we do is made to order for a specific usage," he added.

Catering to the client

The Kiosk Factory president Julian Bowron prefers customization. Among the kiosks displayed on the home page of his company's Web site is a grinning, tuxedo-clad butler with a telephone in one hand and a computer monitor in the other.

But he said there is not enough customization in the business.

"The kiosk market is dominated by people that make what I call Gumby kiosks," Bowron said. "They're slabs of sheet metal with a touch screen set into them.

"You kind of get sick of looking at a slab that bends to the left, a slab that bends to the right, black slab, silver slab," he continued. "It's all the same thing over and over again."

Bowron believes those kiosk makers need to adjust. And the key, he said, is to look at a client's requirements objectively and create something to meet their needs.

The Kiosk Factory worked along those lines with the Canadian-based theater chain Famous Players. The company designed ticket-dispensing kiosks in the shape of aliens, Ming warriors, and an Egyptian pharaoh.

"In the lobbies of the theaters where those are deployed, 80 percent of the tickets are sold by kiosks. Only 20 percent are sold by the box office staff," he said. "There will be a larger line up at the aliens than there will be at the box office because people want to use them."

For a completely customized kiosk, Bowron said the price can run $12,000 to $20,000 for a display-grade prototype and $20,000 to $35,000 for an architectural grade prototype. He said the most his company has charged for a kiosk prototype was $180,000.

Something borrowed

But not all clients want to pay for highly customized solutions. For those customers, manufacturers offer standard designs that can be tailored to the client's needs.

Hamed Shabazi, president of Info Touch Technologies Corp. in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, said he sometimes prefers to modify a standard design.

"It's a very good strategy," Shahbazi said. "Your development costs are going to be a lot lower and the nice thing about the kiosk industry growing is you've got a lot of designs out there now and if you do enough homework, you could probably find something that resembles what you're looking for."

CeroView used this approach in a recent project with Coca-Cola. The company wanted a kiosk system its employees could use to access intranet information on its corporate campus in Atlanta. Coca-Cola liked CeroView's Philae model, one of nine standard models the company showcases at its Web site. But they wanted the kiosk, which has a curved shape and 17-inch monitor, to be easily recognizable as a Coca-Cola machine.

Fretheim presented them with a design that used Coca-Cola's trademark logo and red color. The company bought six of them.

"To them, that was exciting because they didn't have to pay the design for a customized system, but they were able to semi-customize it, customize the color," he said. "Giving customers that flexibility is important."

CeroView charged Coca-Cola $500 to customize the kiosk. The company usually charges a one-time fee for customizing, though Fretheim said he waives the fee if a client orders more than ten kiosks.

Customization costs for standard units can vary from $200 to $1,500, Bowron said, depending on the changes and size of the order.

Size matters

It is getting easier to customize kiosks, but with that comes problems. Smaller kiosks save space, but can get lost in their settings. Kiosk manufacturers have to be creative with their designs to ensure the kiosks draw attention.

"You can imagine these little LCD devices get pretty much lost in the shuffle in a retail store, so you're pretty much forced to do something to bring it back to the forefront," Swistak said.

Kiosk manufacturers and designers are using unusual designs, overhead monitors, video, back-light transparencies and pixel boards to draw attention. Some manufacturers avoid stainless steel, using softer materials such as cloth or leather.

Fretheim believes sleek design is the key tool for attracting users. He points to CeroView's Prestige line, which features a curved design and is just two inches thick, as an example. Pfizer, Compaq Corp., and the U.S. Army have bought Prestige models.

"It's sexy, so to speak. People look at it and they say, `Oh my gosh, this is cool,' " he said. "And they're intrigued to walk up to it because it's a unique design."

Having a unique design that attracts the eye is important, Swistak said, because clients are beginning to understand the possibilities with kiosk enclosure designs.

"In business, there are a lot of devices that people try out. They really test waters to see if they can be successful or not," he said. "Those that are successful go on to the roll-out stage."

[Editor's note: Info Touch Technologies became Tio Networks in April 2006.]