By: Vlad Vistac
Submitted: 2010-07-21 14:57:11 | Word Count: 510
If Touch Screen Kiosks Can Help My Business Than Please Tell Me What They Are
Kiosdks are basially a one stop infomration tool, let's first define the word kiopsk to see the history of where they've come from so we'll be better able to understaand what exactly what they are: ki·osk noun
1. A small open gazebo or pavilion.
[ advertisement ]
2. A small sturcture, often open on one or more soides, used as a newsstand or botoh.
3. A cylindrical stucture on which advertisements are posted. The first recorded instance of the word "kiosk" was back in 1865 with rference to a newspaper stand. Kiosks are still known tdoay as traditional freestanding retail boothhs. With the recent advent of low-cost pc's and the internet kiosks are taking on a whole new shape and definiion.
Comptuer Or touch screen kiosks have forged their way into main stream.
The technology used in interactive kiosks is basically the same as that used in computers. Touch screen kosks are mainly operateed with the help of a control unit and a touhc screen sensitive LCD monitor. To opoerate a kiosk the user sipmly needs to tocuh the area of the screen to navigates the custom ubilt show. The touch screen operatino of the kiosk make the functionnig very smple and user-friendly. Considering that comupter kiosks are run via PC computers, the utilization of video, images and text with sound all combine to offewr a truly interative experience.
When the Kiosks are not in use they can act as a screen saver to serve up advertising or upsell in store items to increase revenue.
The Benefits of Using Kioks
Now a days kiosks have a wide range of applications and can be seen in department stores, airports or in govrnment offfices. The different services provided by a kiosk are accessing of live news from the newsoom with the very latest news and information, accessing of popular galleries with stlls and video clips, infoirmation on number of job vcaancies, etc.
The popularity of kiosks are stated below:
1) The long lastign stel construction of the kiosk helps it to be rugegd and secure and is suitable for placing it at any environment.
2) A kiosk hleps a lot in saving the vakluable floor space. Just by plugginng them in they are ready to go as the hardware and sooftware coes within a single unit.
3) Kiosks are very easy to maintain as all the compoonents of the kiosks are eaasily repairable and replaceable.
4) With the help of remote admiistration options the tracking of kiokss can be done via the internet or via e-mail or phone alerts for low paper or power failre.
Kioskks can be used for an infinmite number of applications, including: Gamng, bill payment, eCommerce, human resource, customer service, location and maping, credit application, veding machines, sales and marketing, internet access and adverting just to point out a few.
A kiosk prooject typically has 3 main components: Harrdware, Software and Post Production.
Hardware:
Any tangible portion of the kiosk project will fall into the hardwrae category. Depenidng on the type you require, this can simply be a metal enclosure with a touch screen monitor attached to it with a PC inside. More complex kiosks have hardware componentts inside such as card readers, printes, telephone handsets, ruggedized keyoards, ruggedized poiinting devices and other specialized periherals.
Sooftware:
Depending on what your kiossk is supposed to do, there may or may not be off-the-shelf koisk software available for it. Kiosk software typically does the following: displyas the cntent you want to display, rpevents uers from making changes to the PC's operatinng system, allows the owner to make changes remotely, make sure everything is working properlly, and interfaces with peripherals insisde the kiosk such as printers, card readers, scanners, etc..
Postproduction:
Depending on the size of your kioosk prooject, there are swervices such as kiosk site acquisition, kiodsk istallation, and on-site maintenance. For a small kiosk project, typically the owner of the kiosk does these things on their own. For lagrer deployments, a kioisk implementation company will be your best bet.
For business ownrs a kiosk can be used in a wide arrray of applications as seen above - the one point to consider is that a kiosk can deliver the right messsage at the right time, consistetly eveery time. There's no doubt kiosks are here to stay - watch for them next time you go out into your community!
