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Who's Who: Francie Mendelsohn

One of the kiosk industry's most beloved analysts boasts a fascinating background - from her career at the National Security Agency to the time she won big on "Wheel of Fortune."

June 14, 2006

As one of the most in-demand speakers and researchers in the realm of kiosks and self-service and an authority on usability and design, Francie Mendelsohn logs a lot of frequent-flier miles, giving her delicate-but-brutally-honest treatment to deployments throughout the world. She's been in this business long enough to have seen some remarkable changes - a few bad, many more good - and today enjoys the enthusiastic respect of her peers.

"Francie has probably guided more kiosks in the right direction than anyone else in the industry," said Doug Peter, president of St. Clair Interactive Communications. "She has a rare combination of common sense and vision. Also, as we all know, anyone who stays in kiosks for so long must have the patience of a saint. We are glad she does!"

Ben Wheeler of I-engage Kiosk Solutions calls her the "patron saint" of the kiosk world.

"She believed in this industry long before it was even an industry," he said. "Even when times got bad, just after 9/11, you would find Francie giving seminars and presentations that made everyone within earshot know that she still believed in this whole self-service thing and that sooner or later it would mature into what it is becoming today."

Mendelsohn's company, Summit Research Associates, just celebrated its 12th anniversary.

"I can't believe it's been 12 years - that's so long!" she said. "To give you an idea of how things have changed: Back then, if kiosks showed any kind of animation or video, it was all housed on a laser disc, because hard-drives were miniscule."

As devices have grown, so has the kiosk industry, and so too has Mendelsohn's business: Summit offers six research reports on various sectors, and she leads a number of workshops at conferences as well as for private clients.

"She has the courage to speak the truth about bad design and low quality," said Julian Bowron, president of Feature Factory and The Kiosk Factory. "Her refreshingly critical approach to the kiosk industry has encouraged suppliers to clean up their act and produce dependable products with intuitive and easy-to-use interfaces."

Stories to tell

When she graduated from college, Mendelsohn immediately landed her first job - with the National Security Agency as a data systems programmer.

"I was working on language translation," she said. "The most interesting thing I did was to write a program to translate from Russian into English. I didn't know Russian - I spoke other languages, but Russian wasn't one of them."

Her other big accomplishment at NSA was writing a computer program to take reconnaissance data and plot it using latitude and longitude. The program allowed officials to decide where to place receivers to pick up enemy transmissions - the enemy, in that case, was the North Vietnamese.

The next ultra-high-profile entry on her resume came in 1988 when she took her 15-year-old son Dan to an audition for a teenage edition of "Wheel of Fortune." While there, she lucked into an open slot for herself.

"I said, `Oh what the heck, I'll try out too,'" she said. "I'd never seen the show from beginning to end. I knew it was glorified Hangman, but that was it."

Her lack of experience with the show didn't hurt her, though. She ended up the big winner, taking home a brand new Mazda.

Well, she almosttook one home Â…

"To tell you the truth, I can't even remember the exact model. I wouldn't take possession of the car," she said. "I was driving a Camry at the time, and I said, `It's cute, but I don't want this. I would rather you give me the money or let me use this toward the car I really do want.'"

At first the show's producers refused, but Mendelsohn didn't relent. "One day they called me and said, `What do you want?' And I said, `I want a sapphire blue MX-6 with a sunroof.'"

Not surprisingly, after she paid the difference in cost, Mendelsohn got what she wanted.

An industry icon

That attitude - kind and gracious, steadfast and determined - has served her well at the helm of Summit Research. And after 12 years, she still loves her work.

Whether in-person or by teleconference, Mendelsohn is constantly working with new kiosk deployers - teaching them to ask the important questions: Does the device provide real value? Can ordinary people use it? Is it appealing? Does it work?

"If I didn't like what I was doing, I'd say goodbye. But it's fun, especially the usability testing, and the opportunity to do workshops and best-practices talks, because I'm always updating them. There's always new stuff to show."