Chapter #7 - Think Inside the Box

Resident kiosk expert, Marie VanDrisse, is back on the blogging scene with the latest chapter in her kiosk development story. In case you happened to miss 'em, you can check out the previous chapters here, here, here, here, here and here.

Chapter 7 - Think Inside the Box

We're so used to being told to think outside the box, but no, that's not a typo in the subject line. While a little creativity in kiosk design helps attract customers, kiosk designers need to also consider what's going on inside the enclosure of a kiosk to ensure a positive customer experience. There are more things to mull over than ever before as more and more kiosks are being opened up to encourage customer interaction and/or offer self-service opportunities.

In planning a kiosk, it's important to understand how you want your customers served within your shopping environment. Do your products lend themselves better to being display in a glass counter with an employee standing behind them? This type of kiosk is quite common and popular for items like cell phones where the products are higher-priced and the vendors need the additional storage for inventory and accessories.

Two developing trends within kiosks, however, are increasing customer interaction with products and offering self-service. Customers, in general, want to pick up and touch items and compare them with other products. They may not want a salesperson hovering over them either. Imagine not having to settle for a standard-size dish of frozen yogurt and being able to decide and serve yourself as much as you want. Self-serve frozen yogurt kiosks like this are setting up shop and providing fun and interactive experiences for mall walkers around the country.

Designing interactive and self-service kiosks will take more thought and consideration on what elements need to be included. Here are some questions to ask yourself during the planning process:

• Is there a "purchase path" customers will have to take through the kiosk to purchase the product (i.e., will they have to select one product or complete one step before moving on to the next)?
• How much storage will be needed to replenish stock?
• What accommodations for spillage or easy clean-up need to be made?
• How many point-of-sale stations will you need and will you need to incorporate scales or other measurement tools into the point-of-sale area?

Successful interactive and self-service kiosk deployment requires thorough planning upfront and well-considered, functional design. It's like Hunter S. Thompson said, "Anything worth doing is worth doing right." That means thinking a little outside the box, but not forgetting to think about the insides too.

--Marie VanDrisse (Connect with me on LinkedIn.)