There's admittedly not much new info about kiosk or digital signage projects in this recent article by MTI's Jason Goldberg on CE Pro, but they did introduce me to a term that I hadn't come across before: feature fatigue. Simply put, it "refers to electronics customers and their overwhelmed state in researching and becoming acclimated to new products and their—you guessed it—feature-laden natures."
I consider myself a fairly tech-savvy guy, but I can identify with this phenomenon. Even the relatively simple task of selecting a new digital camera for my mom this past Christmas proved it true: I wanted to be able to pick up and handle the different models, so a bricks-and-mortar store was a must. But at the same time, it was hard to compare the features listed on the little tags next to each model, and the sales reps were hampered by big crowds and a lack of detailed product knowledge, so a link to the 'net (and product manufacturer websites and Amazon.com reviews) was also a must.
But I'm guessing I'm one of the few people who will still go into a store and whip out their smart phone (a Blackberry in my case) to look up additional product info. Even "big screen" phones like the iPhone are limited by screen size and connection speed.
An in-store kiosk or smart POS would have been an ideal solution in my case, but sadly the store I was in lacked both. Not surprisingly, Goldberg's firm MTI makes such devices (as do many other companies, of course). Their favorite bit of kit is an item pull, barcode or RFID-based system that lets customers retrieve product information simply by handling the desired item. But when it comes to trying to figure out the pros and cons of various electronics, I find that nothing beats physically handling the different products, and then using one of those comparison matrices to pull out the salient features and compare them head to head. Once I have a product that looks/feels goods and stacks up well against the competition, a quick check of popular product review sites lets me know what past product owners have thought about their purchase.
It's an elaborate system that probably only increases my feature fatigue, but given how complex buying something even as simple as a camera has become, I'll take it over buyer's remorse any day.
Tags: interactive kiosks, smart POS, feature fatigue
I consider myself a fairly tech-savvy guy, but I can identify with this phenomenon. Even the relatively simple task of selecting a new digital camera for my mom this past Christmas proved it true: I wanted to be able to pick up and handle the different models, so a bricks-and-mortar store was a must. But at the same time, it was hard to compare the features listed on the little tags next to each model, and the sales reps were hampered by big crowds and a lack of detailed product knowledge, so a link to the 'net (and product manufacturer websites and Amazon.com reviews) was also a must.
But I'm guessing I'm one of the few people who will still go into a store and whip out their smart phone (a Blackberry in my case) to look up additional product info. Even "big screen" phones like the iPhone are limited by screen size and connection speed.
An in-store kiosk or smart POS would have been an ideal solution in my case, but sadly the store I was in lacked both. Not surprisingly, Goldberg's firm MTI makes such devices (as do many other companies, of course). Their favorite bit of kit is an item pull, barcode or RFID-based system that lets customers retrieve product information simply by handling the desired item. But when it comes to trying to figure out the pros and cons of various electronics, I find that nothing beats physically handling the different products, and then using one of those comparison matrices to pull out the salient features and compare them head to head. Once I have a product that looks/feels goods and stacks up well against the competition, a quick check of popular product review sites lets me know what past product owners have thought about their purchase.
It's an elaborate system that probably only increases my feature fatigue, but given how complex buying something even as simple as a camera has become, I'll take it over buyer's remorse any day.
Tags: interactive kiosks, smart POS, feature fatigue
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