A city council has commissioned a new self-service ticketing kiosk for a busy transport hub. The kiosk must support commuters buying single and return tickets, tourists purchasing day passes, and passengers who need step-free route information.
The first prototype includes:
- a -inch touchscreen with small text and icons
- an on-screen keyboard for entering destinations
- contactless payment only
- a receipt printer positioned low on the right-hand side
- a help button that opens a long FAQ page
During a short pilot, staff observed queues building at peak times and frequent errors when users selected the wrong ticket type. Some users tried to tap their cards multiple times, and several left without completing the purchase.
A designer produced a sketch to summarise the current layout, see Figure 1.
Figure 1: Early kiosk layout used in the pilot
The council wants the next iteration to be demonstrably usable, inclusive, and safe to deploy across multiple stations with different lighting and noise levels.
(a) one reason why usability is important to the success of this kiosk in the transport hub environment.
(b) one reason why efficiency is an important usability objective for this kiosk.
