Kiosks – More than just keyboards, mice, and touch panels

Creating great applications by adding scanners, printers, card readers and sound

When designing kiosk applications, accessories such as scanners, card readers and printers add more and innovative ways of interacting with the customers. The MultiQ digital signage system includes a number of such devices to fit directly into your project.

Many kiosks use a keyboard, a mouse or a touch panel to interact with the customer. However, certain accessories can add to the customer experience as well as provide you with valuable customer feedback.

In the figure you see some of the accessories that can be provided with your MultiQ media monitor or media player.

Accessories such as a floor stand, a scanner, a card reader or

a printer adds to the features of a kiosk application. The color of the floor stands as

well as the media monitors can be customized according to your preferences.

MultiQ media players and media monitors can be connected to external audio systems. However, in many cases you would prefer internal speakers to handle the sound tracks of video clips or to add sound effects when customers press buttons and so on. Therefore internal speakers can be provided with the media monitors as an option.

Scanners are very practical to let customers scan the EAN codes that are available on your products. The EAN codes can be associated with video clips, images or web pages that describe the product and are presented on the screen as the customer scans the item.

Card readers can be used to confirm that a customer is in possession of a particular loyalty card that is required to get a specific offer that is then presented on the screen.

Printers can be used to print queue tickets as well as recipes or other things that need to be remembered such as where to find a specific product in a store.

The standard kiosk floor mount will be a perfect home for your media monitor as well as the printer that can be fitted inside the pole. Common problems with built-in kiosks, such as overheating, are eliminated with this design.

As the customer scans a product, use the card reader or the printer, some content will be displayed and logged within the MultiQ digital signage management system. The logs may contain valuable information about what products are the most interesting to your customers.

Adding the right accessory will complete your kiosk.

Lars-Ingemar Lundström

Documentation and Training Manager, MultiQ