Challenges in the delivery of e-government through kiosks

Kiosks are increasingly being heralded as a technology through which governments, government departments and local authorities or municipalities can engage with citizens. In particular, they have attractions in their potential to bridge the digital divide. There is some evidence to suggest that the citizen uptake of kiosks and indeed other channels for e-government, such as web sites, is slow, although studies on the use of kiosks for health information provision offer some interesting perspectives on user behaviour with kiosk technology. This article argues that the delivery of e-government through kiosks presents a number of strategic challenges, which will need to be negotiated over the next few years in order that kiosk applications are successful in enhancing accessibility to and engagement with e-government. The article suggests that this involves consideration of: the applications to be delivered through a kiosk; one stop shop service and knowledge architectures; mechanisms for citizen identification; and, the integration of kiosks within the total interface between public bodies and their communities. The article concludes by outlining development and research agendas in each of these areas.</p

Online kiosks: the alternative to mobile technologies for mobile users

Online kiosks have the potential to be a significant alternative to mobile technologies in retailing, information provision and service delivery. This article describes the development and use of different types of online kiosk in contexts where users are on the move and away from fixed technologies. A case study of a major UK airport terminal is used to illustrate different types of kiosk applications. Comparisons are made with mobile phone technologies. Online kiosks have a niche in allowing access to information, services and e-commerce technologies for all potential consumers. However, they also have a much wider role in self-managed, self-service delivery of information, services, goods and relationships to consumers on the move.</p

Kiosks in retailing: the quiet revolution

Kiosks have the potential to be a significant application of IT in retailing, information provision and service delivery. This article discusses and analyses the application of kiosks as a channel for in-store service delivery. For these kiosks a taxonomy that characterises kiosks by their function: inform, interact, transact and relate is proposed. Eight case study examples of in store kiosks are analysed in using a framework that includes environment, task, audience, and technology. Included are: kiosks used by Halifax, Daewoo, Argos, Ikea, Debenhams, GNER, Sainsbury’s. and Boots. Both the taxonomy and the framework provide a basis for further analysis of the role of kiosks in service delivery, by allowing analysis and discussion of individual kiosks to be contextualised within a wider framework. </p

A Location-based Approach for Distributed Kiosk Design

Electronic kiosk interface design and implementation metrics have been well established. The problem arises when more than one kiosk is utilized in a different location within the same geographic proximity using the same basic informational parameters. This manuscript describes the design implications of a distributed kiosk environment from the standpoint of a field experiment. The log files from 2 kiosks deployed in the same building are analyzed for correlations among kiosk location and information required. The results show that while kiosk systems deployed in “primary entrances” should have a broad view of pertinent information, kiosks deployed in more remote locations should have information pertinent to that area initially presented to the individual. This research provides both confirmatory evidence and a checklist of implementation decision points for those who wish to implement a distributed kiosk architecture

Improving Direction-Giving Through Utilization of an RFID-Enabled Kiosk

This paper presents an RFID-enabled module for an electronic kiosk physical user interface which provides personalized information retrieval. The system builds on research in direction-giving by streamlining the process of the direction-giving phase and minimizing the introduction and closure phases, thereby providing the user with a quicker transaction for personalized information. The RFID technology also provides potential for greater security and privacy for the user of the kiosk system as compared to traditional magnetic strip methods. The developed RFID-enabled system is built on top of a current production informational kiosk utilized for a building directory, which was used for initial testing and evaluation

The Role of Health Kiosks in 2009: Literature and Informant Review

Kiosks can provide patients with access to health systems in public locations, but with increasing home Internet access their usefulness is questioned. A literature and informant review identified kiosks used for taking medical histories, health promotion, self assessment, consumer feedback, patient registration, patient access to records, and remote consultations. Sited correctly with good interfaces, kiosks can be used by all demographics but many ‘projects’ have failed to become routine practice. A role remains for: (a) integrated kiosks as part of patient ‘flow’, (b) opportunistic kiosks to catch people’s attention. Both require clear ‘ownership’ to succeed

Distributed Gesture Controlled Systems for Human-Machine Interface

This paper presents the design flow of an IoT human machine touchless interface. The device uses embedded computing in conjunction with the Leap Motion Controller to provide an accurate and intuitive touchless interface. Its main function is to augment current touchscreen devices in public spaces through a combination of computer vision technology, event driven programming, and machine learning. Especially following the COVID 19 pandemic, this technology is important for hygiene and sanitation purposes for public devices such as airports, food, and ATM kiosks where hundreds or even thousands of people may touch these devices in a single day. A prototype of the touchless interface was designed with a Leap Motion Controller housed on a Windows PC exchanging information with a Raspberry Pi microcontroller via internet connection.Comment: 5 Pages, Accepted for Publication in 2022 IEEE International Conference on Electro Information Technology (eIT

UsaGame – A new methodology to support user- centered design of touchscreen game applications

Dissertação para Obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia e Gestão IndustrialTouchscreen mobile devices growth resulted in an explosion of the mobile applications. Focusing on touch mobile game applications this study aims to fulfill a research gap, creating appropriate usability guidelines for these applications. Concerns about usability, touch technologies, mobile devices and game testing, provided the background needs for this study. Initial game application tests allowed for the creation and implementation of such proposed usability guidelines into a support checklist (UsaGame), designed to help applications developers. An evaluation test was performed with 20 users in order to assess the validity of the proposed guidelines. Results from the test of the two builds from the same game application allowed comparisons that led to the assessment of the importance of some of the guidelines implemented into the application. Results suggested a usability improvement on the game application implemented with the guidelines. Furthermore results allowed commenting on all proposed usability guidelines

E-anamnesis: a clinical observation electronic platform for emergency departments

Dissertação de mestrado em Engenharia BiomédicaOne of the reasons for the increased number of visits to emergency departments is the primary health care inability to handle urgent needs and provide all the health services needed to assess complex conditions. A significant amount of these visits are due to the abnormal flow of patients whose clinical condition is of low severity and could ideally be resolved with self-care and primary health care. The crowding in emergency departments causes operational and logistical problems and has undesirable consequences for patients, health professionals and hospitals. Delays in treatment interventions and increased mortality, medical errors and waiting times are just a phew examples of critical consequences that can occur, resulting in a significant barrier to the quality of health care delivery. With the advances in technology, several institutions have found in self-service an alternative for the patient’s collection of health information autonomously. These devices can be used by low clinical severity patients (with the blue, green or yellow bracelets from Manchester triage) to reduce waiting time in the emergency departments. This dissertation proposes a technological solution to improve both the time and quality of the anamnesis procedure performed by medical staff in the emergency department. The introduction of a self-service kiosk in the emergency department waiting room will make it possible to quickly and intuitively collect the patient’s past medical history, usual medication, main complaint symptoms and vital signs. Subsequently, this data will be made available to the physician before each clinical observation. The hypothesis considered is that by providing a selective, structured and uniform anamnesis information’s presentation of each patient, medical staff observation can proceed much faster and accurately, focusing on the confirmation of the most relevant aspects. The primary purpose of this solution is to reduce the period of clinical observation and thus improve the response capacity of the emergency department with the same resources.Uma das razões para o aumento do número de visitas ao serviço de urgência é a incapacidade dos cuidados de saúde primários de lidar com necessidades urgentes e de fornecer todos os serviços de saúde necessários para avaliar condições complexas. A maioria destas visitas deve-se ao fluxo anormal de doentes cuja condição clínica é de baixa gravidade que poderiam, idealmente, ser resolvidos com recurso ao auto-cuidado e aos cuidados de saúde primários. A lotação nos serviços de urgência provoca problemas operacionais e logísticos, apresentando consequências indesejáveis para os doentes, profissionais de saúde e hospitais. Atrasos nas intervenções de tratamento e o aumento da mortalidade, dos erros médicos e dos tempos de espera são apenas alguns exemplos de consequências críticas que podem ocorrer, resultando numa barreira significativa a qualidade da prestação de cuidados de saúde. Com os avanços da tecnologia, diversas instituições, encontraram nos serviços de auto-atendimento uma alternativa para a recolha autónoma de informações de saúde do doente. Estes dispositivos, poderão ser usados por doentes de baixa gravidade clínica (com pulseira azul, verde ou amarela da triagem de Manchester) nos serviços de urgência com vista à redução do tempo de espera. Esta dissertação propõe uma solução tecnológica para melhorar tanto o tempo como a qualidade do procedimento de anamnese realizado pelos médicos no serviço de urgência. A introdução de um quiosque de auto-atendimento na sala de espera do serviço de urgência permitirá recolher de forma rápida e intuitiva a história clínica, medicação habitual, sintomas da queixa principal e sinais vitais do doente. Posteriormente estes dados serão colocados à disposição do médico antes de cada observação clínica. A hipótese considerada é que ao fornecer uma apresentação seletiva, estruturada e uniforme da informação de anamnese de cada doente, a observação dos médicos possa proceder de forma muito mais rápida e precisa, concentrando-se na confirmação dos aspectos mais relevantes. O principal objectivo desta solução é reduzir o período de observação clínica e assim melhorar a capacidade de resposta do serviço de urgência com os mesmos recursos