The 'Most' | SelfServiceWorld | Self Service World

Superlatives are tricky things. There is no telling how many arguments, both casual and heated, have come from trying to determine the Greatest Batter in Baseball or Best Rock Song or Coolest Vintage Car.

And yet such speculation is tantalizing, because even if it doesn’t lead to any sense of finality, it does lead to a journey of exploration that inevitably turns up some interesting things. You might not walk away knowing who, in fact, is the Greatest Batter, but you might learn that Ted Williams was the last major-leaguer to break a .400 season average.

It is in this spirit that we offer up a few thoughts on the most interesting things we’ve seen in the self-service world in recent months. The list is by no means complete — in fact, it’s not so much a list as a snapshot of what you might hear us talking about if you were to have a few drinks with our editorial staff after a tradeshow — but we think it’s a fascinating one, and we hope you do, too.

The newly remodeled 30 Minute Photos in Irvine, Calif.

Dan’s Camera City in Allentown, Pa., has received a lot of attention — and rightfully so — for its DigiPrint Lounge, a large section of the store filled with photo kiosks and comfortable chairs. Rather than standing in line trying to hurry through the prompts because the person behind you is tapping her foot, patrons at Dan’s can sip coffee while they leisurely crop, tweak and print photos. Another wing of the store is devoted to scrapbooking enthusiasts.

Other photofinishers are following suit, like 30 Minute Photos Etc. in Irvine, Calif. In business for 16 years, the store recently went through a complete overhaul, adding a “photo bar” stocked with Lucidiom photo kiosks, including the new “Luci” model aimed at scrapbookers.

So how is this new approach working? In the case of 30 Minute Photos, very well: The company spent about $100,000 on the overhaul, and just a few days later, a customer spent $1,500 in a single session at a kiosk.

These stores are truly applying the “Starbucks effect” to the photo shop, realizing that modern consumers are more conscious of design, aesthetics and personal experience than ever before.

Speaking of aesthetics, the Canadian Broadcast Corporation developed a most interesting enclosure to capture audience opinions at any location. The LIVE WIRE kiosk, created by Vancouver design consultancy UNIQUE:ID, is a portable device that is wheeled to events like the NHL finals, rock concerts and parliament meetings.

Passersby are prompted with various poll questions, and record answers with the built-in microphone. The answers are sent wirelessly to a central server, where they are monitored for content. If an answer makes the grade, it might be played back on the government’s talk radio station, CBC radio ONE. A webcam also snaps a picture of the user, which is displayed on the CBC Web site alongside his response.

Ten of the units, which were designed to mimic the look and feel of a vintage Ford Roadster, have been dispersed to big metropolitan areas across Canada.

While we’re in Canada: One of the most creative uses of self-service comes from Quebec, where CD Soft Inc. has produced the first turnkey kiosk system specifically for car dealership service departments. The product, marketed under the brand name BRAC, allows customers to complete their own work orders.

Typically,

CD Soft's BRAC system allow customers to drop their cars off for serviceing outside of business hours.

auto service departments experience heavy traffic at opening time, with a daily onslaught of drivers wanting to leave their cars on the way to work. Guy Duplessis, owner of one of the largest Honda dealerships in Canada, said the morning rush was beginning to take a heavy toll on his customer-satisfaction numbers.

The kiosk allows customers to drop off their vehicles at any time, using the touchscreen to specify desired services. The software also recommends additional services tailored to the customer, like oil changes and belt replacements.

The HomeOwnership center uses a 40-inch touchscreen to disseminate information to home buyers.

One of the most interesting ways to disseminate information to consumers comes in the form of the HomeOwnership Center from SeePoint LLC. The statuesque device consists of a 40-inch touchscreen, in portrait orientation, sitting atop an elegant wooden stand. Customers can browse listings of homes for sale and look at large, vibrant photos on the giant display. The menu also connects users with loan officers and up-to-date information on mortgage rates.

SeePoint also boasts

SeePoint's Polaris ATV Experience Center uses touchscreens to simulate and off-road ride.

one of the most unusual kiosk integrations with their Polaris ATV Experience Center. Deployed to 200 stores across North America, each installation includes two touchscreen kiosks, plus a full-sized ATV sitting on a simulated rocky terrain. One touchscreen hangs where a customer can access it while sitting in the ATV’s driver’s seat; this screen simulates riding through mud, on forest trails and across water. The other kiosk, a freestanding unit positioned nearby, dispenses information for this very complex buying decision.

Undoubtedly, one of the most talked-about technologies of recent months has been Immersion’s tactile-feedback touchscreen. Using tiny actuators that create a vibration, Immersion’s TouchSense technology gives users the impression that they are actually pressing a button. The company has a long string of successes in non-kiosk applications — its feedback systems are at work and play in the PlayStation 2 controller and other gaming components. Company execs believe the addition of a sensory experience to touchscreens might just be a killer app.

You can’t talk about the most

GestureTek's GroundFX projects interactive content on store floors.
inventive interfaces without talking about GestureTek, a Silicon Valley firm that is one of the pioneers of unusual and cutting-edge interface mechanisms. The company holds multiple patents on its Video Gesture Control (VGC) technology, which allows users to communicate with on-screen content through a variety of non-touch gestures — for instance, pointing at the screen.

One of the most traffic-stopping uses of VGC is the GroundFX system, which projects interactive content on a store floor. Customers interact with it through simple hand and foot movements. It can currently be found in the Virgin Megastore in Hollywood.

For retailers, floor space is akin to gold; the GroundFX is a product that has the potential to remake every square inch of existing floor space into an interactive marketing device.

RealTime Shredding's kiosk makes quick work of disposing of sensitive data.

Most self-service devices aim to create something — data, a transaction, revenue — but one of the most interesting self-service business models deals with destroying things. Colorado-based RealTime Shredding has deployed its eponymous kiosk in six locations. Customers dump unwanted materials that pose a security risk — bank statements, credit card offers, even CD-ROMs and reams of files with staples and paper clips — into the large hopper on the front and watch them be shredded right before their eyes. For $1, customers can use the commercial-grade shredder for two minutes — enough to do away with about 400 sheets of paper.

The most far-flung kiosk distribution — which boasts installations so far in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Honduras, Kosovo, Qatar and Saudi Arabia — is the U.S. Treasury Department’s EagleCash program, which is designed to reduce the amount of currency needed to support troops overseas. Soldiers are given EagleCash cards instead of cash. The cards are good at all military stores, post offices and dining facilities.

EagleCash kiosks, built on NCR EasyPoint hardware, allow soldiers to carry out financial transactions such as transferring funds from their EagleCash accounts to bank accounts back home, or vice versa.

“Previously, soldiers waited in long lines at the post finance office to cash checks or load funds to their EagleCash cards,” said Graham Mackenzie, program manager for stored-value solutions at the Treasury Department’s Financial Management Service. “The kiosks provide soldiers with an easily accessible way to recharge their cards. They can make balance inquiries and transfer funds to and from their accounts — all with the convenience of self-service.”

Finally,

Project ER, from Arc Design and Carnegie Mellon University, makes a trip to the hospital more pleasant for sick children.

we come to the most noble cause we’ve seen lately, spearheaded by Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center. “Project ER” is an attempt by three graduate students, Fred Gallart, Phil Light and Patrick Mittereder, to make a trip to the emergency room more bearable for children.

Visiting an ER is the opposite of fun for most children — in addition to the stress of the condition that brought them there, waiting rooms are not usually optimized for kids. And a long wait only exacerbates the agony.

The three designers of Project ER have worked with Adam Aronson, noted kiosk designer and principle of Arc Design, to custom-build a playful enclosure that can be loaded with colorful games and diversions, then integrated into a redesigned aesthetic for the waiting room itself. For its inaugural effort, Project ER is working with the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, where it expects an installation to be complete by the end of summer.

“From the beginning of the project, we knew that we wanted a kiosk enclosure which would be unique, organic and inviting,” said Light. “Because our interface is a single touchscreen, we felt that there was a significant risk of creating something which looked more like an ATM than a toy — which we clearly wanted to avoid.”

Light said Children’s Hospital has been just as excited about the project as the design team, and has made it clear they want more than one of the kiosks.

“On their most recent visit to our labs, the words we kept hearing to describe the process were ‘grand slam,’” he said.

Ted Williams, no doubt, would approve.