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When Francie talks...

Specialization in kiosk consulting wasn't the original plan for Summit Research Associates. But Francie Mendelsohn says her company found its niche when it began publishing objective, and sometimes critical, reports on kiosk design.

February 2, 2004 by

Log on to the Web site of Summit Research Associates Inc. and you'll find a bold, yet humorous confession from its president and founder.

"The hardest part of consulting on kiosks is having to tell clients that their baby is ugly."

Francie Mendelsohn has made a career out of breaking the bad news to proud parents about their "babies." While other research groups have included kiosk consulting in their repertoire, Mendelsohn does it exclusively.

"When I started Summit, I never intended it to be kiosk only. I said, `No, we do technology assessments.' I kept going `Not just kiosks, not just kiosks,' " she said. "One day I woke up and said, `Idiot, there's a niche here and you're it.' So, I've changed to say we're the only consulting firm that is devoted to kiosks."

Maybe it's the fact that Mendelsohn enjoys her work that makes kiosk troubleshooting easy for her.

"I like to joke, but it's true¾I can spot a loser at a hundred paces," she said. "I don't have to spend a lot of time on a kiosk to see if it's any good or not. You can tell pretty fast and I'm much more forgiving. I will stick around much longer than the average customer ever will."

For example, Mendelsohn recalled her response after testing the kiosk of one company, which she prefers not to identify.

"I actually called the client, I said if you weren't paying me I would not be here," she said. "This is terrible. It's just not working."

In her reports, Mendelsohn doesn't always keep the identities of companies with failing grades a secret. She's willing to record it her frank observations and share them with the rest of the world. That has helped Summit and Mendelsohn establish a major presence.

Summit published its first report, "The Kiosk Connection," in 1994. The report was objective, which surprised many who read it. But Mendelsohn says that preserving her objectivity has been vital to her success.

"Kiosks: The Good, The Bad and The Boring," followed in 1996. This report went a step further in identifying the good and bad practices in kiosks, and Mendelsohn today calls the report "an old standby" for many.

"That continues to sell because people keep making the same mistakes," she said. "A lot of people end up buying it because they want to make sure they don't repeat the mistakes that others have made."

Summit's flagship report, "Kiosks and Internet Technology," was first published in August 1998; a revised report was released in December 1999. Mendelsohn said it's the firm's biggest seller, with several thousand copies sold.

An extensive update of that report is underway, and a third version is expected to be available by January 2001. Mendelsohn said the new volume will triple the size of the current work's 130 pages.

"I wouldn't call it the Bible, but it's by far our biggest and most all-encompassing report," Mendelsohn said. "It's got a lot of charts, statistics and projections. We are very proud of this report."

The new millennium may add a new chapter to Mendelsohn's success story.

The series, "Kiosk Industry Sector Reports," was introduced in October, providing an in-depth study of popular segments of the industry. For the first installment on retail kiosks, more than 100 businesses currently deploying kiosks or with plans to do so were surveyed to determine the impact kiosks had on in-store and online sales. The next installment, a review of Web payphones, is scheduled for a March 2001 release. A report on financial services kiosks will follow in late spring.

The New and the Net

The impact of the Internet will alter many aspects of the industry, Mendelsohn said, mentioning E-mail-enabled machines, called Web payphones, as a growing trend. She added that retail kiosks are gaining in popularity.

"We're already starting to see them in stores that sell appliances," she said, explaining that retailers can save display space by making products available through the kiosks. "You're going to see more and more of that. It makes tremendous sense."

Many retailers are finding that customers shop online, but prefer going to the store to make purchases, Mendelsohn said. "A lot of things, you want to touch it, clothes especially, and then you can go to the kiosk and order it. That's a really good marriage of the two things, so you're going to see a lot going on in that arena."

Summit's most recent work, "Design Tips for Internet Kiosks," was published in June 2000. "Design Tips," one of Summit's bestsellers, challenges the notion that creating a successful Web-based kiosk is as simple as putting a site in a box.

Mendelsohn has reached a stage in which she knows her reports are being used, even if every user of a report doesn't pay for it.

She said it is difficult to control or police unauthorized duplication, a dilemma she shares with other research firms. When a business buys one copy of a report and makes duplicates for employees, it is a clear copyright infringement. But it's one that is hard to enforce.

"Part of me is annoyed about the copyright infringement and part of me is flattered that people think highly enough of the reports that they want to make and distribute copies," she said. "I have no solution for the problem. I am certainly not going to send out `copyright police' because it won't work and you just annoy the honest folks."

Her own honesty has made Mendelsohn a hot commodity in the kiosk world, according to Lawrence Dvorchik, managing director of KioskCom, a kiosk industry trade organization.

"She's straightforward. She's not going to beat around the bush, and she's not going to tell you pretty rose-colored stories if there's a problem," he said. "On the same token, if something is great, she's going to tell you that it's great and why it's great. She's going to be upfront about her experience with the kiosks."

Dvorchik met Mendelsohn at a 1998 conference sponsored by KioskCom, his first with the company. Since then, he's spent a considerable amount of time on the phone with Mendelsohn, including her in the planning of KioskCom events.

"Her insight and input really went a long way in helping the KioskCom event grow," Dvorchik said. "For somebody like myself, who had come in without any knowledge of the kiosk marketplace, the conversations we had were invaluable."

Mendelsohn's knowledge comes from experience in the field. She's tested hundreds of kiosks around the world, and has developed her own set of strategies. Flexibility, she said, is the key. But when she tests more than one unit of the same model, she uses a set script to assure consistency.

A client recently suggested that Mendelsohn begin timing response times with a stopwatch, to see how quickly units with touchscreens respond to commands. If the machine has a printer, she tests its speed and accuracy.

While functionality is important, it doesn't assure a passing grade. A kiosk with quick touchscreen response times and functioning peripherals that does what it promises is good. A kiosk that depends on lengthy sessions to rack up by-the-minute charges, and proves difficult to use, falls into the bad category. Assessing what is boring is a little more complicated. A fully functioning kiosk can still be dull, depending on the presentation.

Mendelsohn has become so familiar with critiquing kiosk design, she's thought about going into the kiosk business herself, but only briefly. She said she prefers to work with people in the industry rather than compete with them. It's certainly less risky.

"They're very expensive propositions," Mendelsohn said. "The ugly secret still remains that far more of them fail than succeed. So I'll leave that whole side of the business to deep pockets. That's fine for them and I'll stick to what I'm doing."

The blame for bad kiosk design is often the responsibility of clients, not kiosk developers, Mendelsohn said.

"I think (businesses) feel they know better than the kiosk company," she said.

It's difficult for many firms to say no to a client, even when the client's ideas are doomed for failure. But Mendelsohn is just as quick to give credit to good design as she is to criticize what she doesn't like.

She was so impressed by a kiosk project by Rocky Mountain Multimedia, she called the company's founder and president, Dave Heyliger, to give him a personal compliment. Heyliger, who has met Mendelsohn just once, at a conference in Denver, he said they've maintained an e-mail correspondence for six years.

Heyliger, who lives in the tiny mountain town of Glenwood Springs, Colo., is a self-made kiosk expert, specializing in kiosk software and consultation. He learned about kiosks through years of experience in the field, just like Mendelsohn.

"I got all my stuff from the school of hard knocks, actually being out there and seeing what did and what didn't work from a kiosk contracting perspective," Heyliger said. "Francie is not afraid to call the baby `ugly' and she has seen and experienced more kiosks than probably anyone else in the world."

As the industry continues to thrive and expand internationally, Mendelsohn's place as a sought-after source of information seems secure. She credits a continuing focus on providing objective and accurate information. So don't expect to see advertising on the Summit site or anything else that might damage the firm's credibility. She thinks that because her views are independent, they're more valuable to the industry.

"They don't have to take my advice, but at least they're not going to hear some sugar-coated explanation. They're going to get the benefit of the fact that I've been testing these things for so many years and can spot a winner."