Self-service kiosk software development

That was posted as a comment in response to the New York Times's David Pogue's rant about Delta's self check-in kiosks:

You come up, you swipe your credit card. That alone ought to tell the kiosk who you are, and it should therefore know what flight you’re checking in for.

But no, it plays dumb. It asks you to key in your destination. So you type in “SAN” for San Francisco. And it asks you: San Francisco, San Diego, or San Juan? Oh, I don’t know–how about THE ONE YOU HAVE A RESERVATION ON!?

(Yes, yes, I know–you might have more than one reservation on Delta. But come on. Let’s say you have flights today at 3 pm, tomorrow at 5 pm, and next Friday at 8 pm. As you swipe your credit card, today, at 1:30 pm, does it really think you’re checking in for anything but the first one?)

But O.K. You tap San Francisco. And now–I kid you not–it wants to know what time of day the flight departs!

Are you kidding me? It doesn’t know the airline’s own flight time? Come on–it already knows what flight I’m on, so what’s the point of this exercise? For God’s sake, just check me in!

Whenever I encounter badly designed software like this, I stand there, slack-jawed, mind boggling, and wonder what on earth the designers were *thinking.* Not, obviously, about elegance, intelligence and simplicity. (My emphasis added)

I'm sure we've all found ourselves in this situation. Clients come in, asking to benefit from our years of experience in the industry. Using that accumulated knowledge, we proceed to work on a design that incorporates the necessary functionality, provides a suitable level of accessibility, and meets the client's business objectives. But because it isn't precisely what the client had in mind, it's not what they ultimately want or feel satisfied with. Their "gut instinct", or whatever you might prefer to call it, gets the better of their reasoning minds. Whether it's a startup in a garage or a Fortune 500 company makes no difference, this phenomenon exists everywhere. In the end, it comes down to sticking to your guns and perhaps losing the account (or your job), or else giving in and winning the contract. You can guess which the Delta kiosk's designers did.

Tags: kiosk, self service, software

For Alaska Airlines, self-service = big savings + better customer experience

It's rare that businesses really come across a true win-win situation. Normally, when people say win-win, it usually means something more akin to "I win, you don't lose... too much." But Alaska Airlines, in a recent bid to update their terminals to improve customer flow, lessen wait times and congestion, and reduce complaints, has figured out how to do it. (Note: this isn't the first time we've written about their experiments). According to this article at Fast Company, the company has used a combination of traffic control and self-service systems to, "save almost $8 million a year on the [newly-renovated] Seattle terminal if it converts customers the way it has in Anchorage. And the makeover cost just $28 million. Thanks to the fast flow of traffic, trained employees, and eye towards efficiency, "seventy-three percent of Alaska's Anchorage passengers now check in using kiosks or the Web, compared with just 50% across the airline industry." The overall result of this?

During [the author's] two hours of observation in Seattle, an Alaska agent processed 46 passengers, while her counterpart at United managed just 22. United's agents lose precious time hauling bags and walking the length of the ticket counter to reach customers. Alaska agents stand at a station with belts on each side, assisting one passenger while a second traveler places luggage on the free belt. With just a slight turn, the agent can assist the next customer. "We considered having three belts," [Ed White, Alaska's VP of corporate real estate] says. "But then the agent has to take a step. That's wasted time."

We know that self-service alone, even when modestly implemented, has helped airlines to streamline their operations and improve efficiency. However, Alaska shows us how building self-service into the corporation, both figuratively and literally, can boost productivity, lower costs and improve customer satisfaction all at once.

Tags: self service, self check-in, kiosks

Fixing your bathroom sink...with your cellphone

The newest digital technologies face one enormous non-technological hurdle: getting ordinary people to use them.

According to mobile content researcher M:Metrics, however, only 6% of U.S. cell phone subscribers used their device to watch a video recently. At the same time, advertising expenditures on mobile ads are projected to be in the billions this year. Right now most marketers are using text ads, with web and video placements in development. Not surprisingly, iPhone owners outpaced all other cell phone users in their downloading and web searching by a huge margin.

But Home Depot is counting on two developments to move video use on mobile devices into everyday experience. First, new technologies make it easier for users to search for, watch, and share, and save mobile videos in close to real time, even going so far as to store playlists on your device.

The second development is smart marketing: Home Depot has developed a series of “how to” videos that are accessible in store and easily downloadable to cell phones. Imagine getting information from a helpful clerk about installing that cool Indonesian-looking ceiling fan, only to get home and get involved in other things like making dinner, driving to a soccer game, and watching the Stanley Cup Finals. By the time you finally get started on that ceiling fan, you wish you’d taken your memory-enhancing supplements that morning. But now, while you were in the store you could have entered an SMS short code into your cell phone and downloaded the instructional video. Back home, you can watch the video and remember to put the mounting plate in before you attach the rotor blades.

What’s great about Home Depot’s strategy is that it offers a necessary and ordinary application for mobile device use. It may be a while before I’m downloading and watching television shows on my iPhone (after all, someone needs to buy me one first) – but I’d get the instructional videos immediately. That's the theory, at least, and Avot Media and Home Depot are already trying out instructional videos downloaded to your cell phone to help with the installation of a new line of ceiling fans.

I don’t have any marketing data on this, but personally, this approach to in-store media is a lot more appealing than video cooking demonstrations in supermarkets. The current formats still seem like 1950s-era Home Ec movies rather than Emeril or even Julia, though I admit I'm biased by my "cooking is an art form" mentality.

On the other hand, my home repair skills are not nearly as eclectic, innovative, or confident as my cooking, so I think I’ll do what the instructions tell me for now. And my favorite part? If I need to, I can always go back and take another quick look on my cell phone. One of our first home-improvement projects ever was putting up a shed from a kit. It came with a video, which we popped into the VCR (yes, that long ago), watched, and then promptly forgot as we mounted the window upside down and on the wrong wall. Perhaps we might have avoided these mistakes if there could have been a quick check on the cell phone video.

Tags: self service, mobile, video

Self-service kiosks 'ease airport experience'

That's according to Virgin Atlantic, who uses 220 check-in kiosks at 39 airports to handle check-ins for over 675,000 passengers per month. According to this article at Just The Flight:

The airline, which has introduced self-service check-in kiosks at all of its UK airports, has said that the options presented by the technology afford passengers a simpler airport experience.

"In the past [passengers] would have to go to the ticket desk and then onto a traditional desk to check in. Now they can do it all in one place, which obviously saves valuable time and gives the passenger a simple and seamless experience," said Janine Donovan, press officer for Virgin Atlantic.

According to the airline's website, as many as nine people can be checked in at once using the self-service kiosks, with a bag drop provided for passengers who have luggage to check in. (emphasis added)

Y'all already know I'm a big fan. But it's pretty cool to see a company with the style and panache of Virgin extolling the virtues of self-service as well.

Also getting in on the airport check-in kiosk lovefest is this article from USA Today about Alaska Airlines's kiosk network expansion. The company will ultimately utilize three clusters of 11 kiosks apiece and an additional 16 bag drop pods at Seattle-Tacoma airport. Along with the addition of kiosks, "the new lobby design has cut average check-in time by half, the airline says."

Tags: self service, self check-in, kiosks

The lowly vending machine reaches newfound heights...

... at least that was the conclusion drawn in this Business Week article about "luxury" vending machines and new devices that can dispense everything from hot soup to iPods and charge your credit card for the privilege. The article notes:

"The new luxury machines in the U.S. use a robotic arm to retrieve the products and are much more slick, high-tech, and interactive than the machines peddling soda and snacks. The gold-and-silver Coty machine in Queens Center, for example, has larger-than-life pictures of J.Lo and Becks plastered all over it. Instead of pushing buttons, shoppers use touchscreens to make their selections and get instructions on how to return purchases. A flat-panel TV continually plays a demonstration video with music.

"Certain machines have additional high-tech bells and whistles such as a 'virtual beauty consultant' at the Elizabeth Arden kiosk, which suggests the best product for a given skin type. The Coty machine lets customers sample the perfumes by pushing a button that releases a scented puff of air through a quarter-sized hole below a picture of the fragrance."

While numerous shoppers have indicated a preference for buying certain types of articles from a machine rather than a person, the article suggests that we're in fact witnessing a fad whose novelty may wear off. While I'll be surprised if machines selling plasma TVs or exotic lingerie will ever become commonplace, there's a tremendous convenience in being able to shop, buy, and instantly receive your product after hours or without being bothered by a bunch of salespeople. The high-end machines that carry these items bring the best of the Internet (easy shopping and operation at all-hours) together with an important bricks-and-mortar advantage: instant gratification.

Tags: self service, vending machines, kiosks

Dell's new kiosk is a real chameleon

Or at least that's what Evan at StorefrontBacktalk has uncovered, as he notes in this blog post:

"Dell will introduce next month a multi-function kiosk that is designed to change function throughout the day, being used perhaps in the morning to check items in at the loading dock before spending the afternoon as a customer-facing pharmacy information booth.

"The as-yet-unnamed 12-inch touchscreen units will likely list for about $1,300 to $1,800 each and will use power-over-Ethernet, said Brian Slaughter, Dell's director of retail.

"Slaughter made much of the kiosk's power-over-Ethernet capability, partially because of its environmentally-friendly aspect (the kiosk uses LEDs to keep power needs down) and also because of the lower operating costs and greater flexibility, he said. "The cost of running Ethernet is substantially less then running power" and video and sound can run over Ethernet at much greater distances, allowing for many of the commercials and other videos needed to be stored on a server at the other end of the store.

The idea of day-parting* content on a digital signage network is of course nothing new, but I can think of very few examples where the same principle has been applied to interactive applications running on kiosks. It makes perfect sense in hindsight -- there are plenty of locations where customers do different things during morning, afternoon and evening. Why not tailor your applications to take advantage of that?

Also, while I've seen some pretty sophisticated devices running on power over ethernet (PoE), this is the first time that I can think of where a real self-service kiosk is taking such a low-power approach. I'll be very curious to see if the limited resources affect its usability at all.

(* If you don't quite understand what day-parting is, I suggest you check out WireSpring's digital signage primer).