Toward accessible self-service kiosks through intelligent user interfaces
Public self-service kiosks provide key services such as ticket sales, airport check-in and general information. Such kiosks must be universally designed to be used by society at large, irrespective of the individual users physical and cognitive abilities, level of education and familiarity with the system. The noble goal of universal accessibility is hard to achieve. This study reports experiences with a universally designed kiosk prototype based on a multimodal intelligent user interface that adapts to the users physical characteristics. The user interacts with the system via a tall rectangular touch-sensitive display where the interaction area is adjusted to fit the users height. A digital camera is used to measure the users approximate reading distance from the display such that the text size can be adjusted accordingly. The users touch target accuracy is measured, and the target sizes are increased for users with motor difficulties. A Byzantine visualization technique is employed to exploit unused and unreachable screen real estate to provide the user with additional visual cues. The techniques explored in this study have potential for most public self-service kiosks.
self-service kiosk intelligent user interface universal design touch display user aware system byzantine projection