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Is software the driving force behind kiosks?

Neil Farr, managing director of Working Solutions in the U.K., discusses the importance of software to a successful kiosk solution. 

November 20, 2002

Neil Farr runs Working Solutions Inc. in the UK, a company with a Holistic approach to developing Kiosks.

As I write this, I am looking at the light bulb illuminating my desk and wondering at how much technology there is in that small glowing object. Not the actual light bulb - but the multitude of other inventions, developments and discoveries which all came about before the light bulb COULD be invented.

Look at any kiosk in your neighbourhood. It probably provides a useful service -- maybe providing access to a wealth of information, or letting you buy things from a central warehouse, or anything. But look a little closer, and what seems to be a very simple system actually is made up of lots of parts, all reliant upon each other.

Some of these parts are easy to visualise. Inside the pretty exterior is probably some form of PC to run the system. There is also likely to be a touchscreen, maybe a printer, possibly a card reader and a keyboard. All of these parts were decided upon for a reason, but they were all dependant upon other technological advances to make them right for this system. It probably would not have worked as well as it does if it had a 5-inch monochrome monitor, a pushbutton access system, and a cooling system out the back of it to cool the supercomputer-style x86 PC.

But there are other components to the system, which are also just as important as the hardware.

The housing for instance -- most kiosks are designed for public use, but if customers don't recognise that they can use them (maybe they look like a set of weighing scales), they don't get used. And the materials -- if the unit is to be used outdoors, metal may be a good choice, but if corrosion or cost were important aspects, maybe another material could have been used.

Years ago, we ran more than 80 kiosks with live information, updated every 15 minutes. We achieved this using a small bank of modems at our head office. It was around 1992, but the modems could only achieve speeds of 14,400 baud, so we had to do a lot of juggling of the data to ensure we could keep up - and the phone bill every month was horrendous! Nowadays, the Internet means we can centralise the data on many kiosks with small operational charges for the use of the lines. We can now keep the information updated very regularly.

And of course, in the same way that the inventor of the light bulb wanted something better than his candle to read by, all kiosks need a Reason to be invented in the first place - having a kiosk that lets you send SMS pictures and messages to people's mobile cell phones would have been useless 10 or even 5 years ago, as there was nothing to send to!

All of these developments -- newer and faster PCs, Smart Card technologies, higher speed connections, and public opinions and habits are the backbone to each kiosk development. But it is up to someone with a great idea, to pull all of these pieces together and glue them together with software.

The way the software is made is what the customer (or user) sees, and although it may seem simple to operate, it should use all of the technological advances it can behind the scenes to make life easy for them. For instance, if a customer wants to order something on a kiosk, should they have to type in their address details each time they use the system, or is there a card reader and a membership card for the store which they can swipe through it? In a photobooth, should we expect them to adjust the seat, or let them make a mistake and have their body chopped off the photo - maybe it would be better if the photobooth actually uses a different camera and then frames the picture for them?

So, is Software the driving force behind Kiosks? No, it is a driving force. By looking at all the aspects of the potential solution, then developing the software (or buying it) with these in mind, the project will be a success.