News

Workshops kick off kiosk conference

February 25, 2002

LONDON - A group of kiosk executives and deployers heard stories of kiosk projects that did and did not work, then were given a chance to develop their own kiosk programs at a pair of workshops at Wembley Conference Center on Nov. 5. The workshops served as the pre-conference portion of the KioskCom Europe trade show, which gets underway on Nov. 6.

The session began with a three-hour workshop led by Summit Research Associates Inc. president Francie Mendelsohn. The kiosk industry consultant discussed a litany of kiosk projects that did and did not work. Mendelsohn advised kiosk deployers to keep the projects simple and abide by all four points of her FIRE philosophy - keep the kiosks fast, interesting, relevant, and easy.

With an audience that included kiosk deployers and industry officials from the United Kingdom, Holland, Latvia, and Spain, she stressed the importance of designing kiosks that are adaptable in multiple countries.

"Setting up standards is important for people who are implementing kiosks from country to country," Mendelsohn said. "It doesn't mean you can't add some local flavor, but developing some standards is important for maintaining consistency between kiosk developers."

Tim Keogh, chief executive officer of interactive product developer Uovo, discussed interface usability. He said many successful projects work because deployers listen to customer concerns before launching the project. One area where kiosk projects frequently go wrong is by assuming an Internet Web site can be transferred to a kiosk screen.

Keogh said that can be a mistake because many customers do not want to look at a cluttered screen or one that requires scrolling. His company witnessed that while conducting consumer tests for Virgin Record's V.Shop kiosk line.

"We had a super quote when we were doing V.Shop research," Keogh said. "We were taking someone through our test example and the guy said `Is this the Internet or something? What's this supposed to be?'

"We designed something that was half like the Internet and half like something that should be in a store," Keogh continued. "If you want something to use in a retail environment and you think you can just pick up something that works on the Internet and put it in your stores it isn't going to work."

During the second half of Keogh's three-hour workshop he split the 20 workshop participants into four groups of five and asked each group to consider a particular customer and design a kiosk application for that customer. Two groups designed a bicycle store parts kiosk for a female bicycling enthusiast; the other two groups considered a pharmacy rewards program for a single male in his early 20s.

KioskCom Europe formally kicks off on Nov. 6 with three seminars and a panel discussion about kiosk software.