UXD for a Prototype Campus Information Kiosk

Mahmut Ekşioğlu

, Handan Güler

, Fulya Terzi

, Haydar Sinan Yıldırım

and Buse Yücel

Industrial Engineering, Boğaziçi University, 34342 Istanbul, Turkey

Civil Engineering, Boğaziçi University, 34342 Istanbul, Turkey

Keywords: Campus Information Kiosk, User Experience Design, Human-Computer Interaction.

Abstract: In this paper, user experience design (UXD) of a prototype campus information kiosk for Boğaziçi University

(BUKIOSK) was presented in its initial phase. The kiosk has the following modules: a campus map, shuttle

bus schedule, BUCard operations, a guide for Eat & Drink and Event information. The procedure consisted

of a user survey, persona, scenario and task generation, design heuristics, system architecture, user testing and

prototyping. The survey conducted with 71 participants revealed the following key points: Majority (75%) of

the participants have difficulties in finding places in the campus; 56% of them looked for a map of the campus

when they first arrived in the campus; and 82% of them favour the idea of a kiosk to support campus life and

it is believed that kiosks would be helpful for orientation through the campus and following the events. The

users in general thought that: the proposed kiosk is really necessary, and it would be pleasant and easy to use.

With the planned further improvements, the design framework presented in this paper may provide a reference

for the UXD of campus kiosks.

1 INTRODUCTION

Campus life plays a very important role both in

university selection and university experience.

According to Astin (1993) a satisfactory educational

experience leads students to a better academic

development. It was also concluded that the strong

support for student services is a distinctive quality for

a faculty and it is associated with positive educational

outcomes. Siming et al. (2015) stated that campus

services and facilities are radically related to student

satisfaction. Therefore, services provided for the

students to support campus life are beneficial to

contribute to student satisfaction, hence to academic

success. Conventionally, at university campuses help

desks are provided for information services but this

requires allocation of a certain amount of university

resources such as university staff, rooms, land, etc.

For example, at the Texas Tech University Libraries,

the public service desk staff received 19,318

questions in six months (Litsey et al., 2015). It is

possible to reduce this workforce dedicated to helping

students by replacing the service desk with enhanced

technological tools, i.e. public kiosks.

In recent years, Public Kiosks, which are defined

as terminals that can deliver services at the point of

need (Maguire, 1999), have been in use for various

purposes including airline check-in services (Lee et

al., 2012), railway ticket vending machines (Sandnes

et al., 2010), tourist information services (Slack and

Rowley, 2002), public internet access (Er and

Çağıltay, 2011), transportation services (Ekşioğlu,

2016), self-service banking (Paradi and Rock, 1997),

collecting responses to questionnaires (Blignaut,

2004) and so on.

Nielsen (1994, 1994a) introduced 10 usability

heuristics which have been the most well-known

universal guiding principles in user interface design.

These principles apply to a wide range of interaction

applications, including public information kiosks.

Maguire (1999) provided a summary of the guidelines

asserted specifically for the development of public

information kiosks, as well as a guideline for the user-

based evaluation of public kiosks.

In one such study, Sandnes et al. (2010) evaluated

the user experience of high speed rail ticket vending

machine in Taiwan by developing sixteen heuristics.

They detected design mistakes and proposed

improvements by using a heuristic evaluation

procedure. Similarly, Kamga et al. (2013) examined

user experience of a touch-screen travel station kiosk

system installed in subway stations in New York. Er

and Çağıltay (2011) also performed a usability test for

the kiosk that was already established in Middle East

176

Ek¸sio

glu, M., Güler, H., Terzi, F., Yıldırım, H. and Yücel, B.

UXD for a Prototype Campus Information Kiosk.

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Computer-Human Interaction Research and Applications (CHIRA 2018), pages 176-182

ISBN: 978-989-758-328-5

Technical University (METU) due to the fact that

usage rate was lower than expected. Johnston and

Bangalore (2004) and Litsey et al. (2015) proposed

interactive information kiosks as city guide and

library kiosk, respectively.

In a more recent study, Ekşioğlu (2016) focused

on an effective, efficient and satisfying user

experience design (UXD) of an interactive public

kiosk from scratch, for İstanbul Public Transportation

System (IPTS) to solve the existing problems and

satisfy the needs of the users. This was achieved

mainly by considering a number of UXD heuristics

and maximizing the user input in the design process.

In the present study, a design procedure similar to

the one used in the study by Ekşioğlu (2016) was

adapted with slight differences but for a different user

group (mainly students) and application area

(problems encountered in a university campus).

2 PROBLEM STATEMENT AND

OBJECTIVES

A survey involving students and visitors of campuses

of Boğaziçi University (Istanbul, Turkey) indicated a

number of issues faced by especially new students

and visitors. The identified problems mainly are

related to the following areas: finding places

(buildings, classrooms, facilities, etc.); accessing to

shuttle bus schedules; finding food and drink options

in the campus; following club activities and events

held in the campus; and use of BUCard (a student ID

card with bank card features). It is likely that similar

problems are faced by students and visitors of college

campuses around the world.

As stated by a number authors (e.g., Astin, 1993

and Simirg et al., 2015), the strong support for student

services is a distinctive quality for a faculty and it is

associated with positive educational outcomes. In

addition, Litsey et al. (2015) suggested the possibility

of reducing the workforce dedicated to helping

students by replacing the service desk with enhanced

technological tools, i.e. public kiosks.

A comprehensive search, including online

databases like the ACM digital library and Google

Scholar and also some proceedings and journals,

indicates that no other studies exist in the literature

targeting the mentioned or similar problems.

As a solution to the stated problems, this study

aims to develop a touch screen information kiosk for

Boğaziçi University (Istanbul, Turkey) campuses

through a pre-defined UXD procedure which may set

as an example for other university campuses. A

simple, accessible, user friendly kiosk is proposed

through which students, employees and guests alike

can access to useful information about the campus

and events. The kiosk will offer the following

features:

 A Campus Map, which shows the campus layout

and allows search for buildings by names and

acronyms used to signify them; presenting the

photograph and historical information about the

searched building;

 A module for Shuttle Bus Schedule, where users

can check shuttle hours and display the routes

and stops;

 BUCard money adding function via credit card;

 an Eat&Drink guide where the users can see the

dining halls, restaurants and cafeterias nearby on

a map and can display menu of the dining hall;

 An Event Guide that lists the current and

upcoming events with time and location

information, as well as an introduction of the

event.

The concept of the campus information kiosk,

named as BUKIOSK, was proposed in line with the

results obtained in the survey, brainstrorming and

based on principles derived from the review of

literature on UXD for public kiosks.

3 METHODS

Following the literature review of UXD of kiosks,

group discussions in the form of brainstorming

sessions and a survey with the prospective users are

conducted in order to determine the issues of campus

life at Boğaziçi University. As a result, a list of main

difficulties affecting the campus life is created. The

list includes the issues related to the orientation

through the campus, eating and drinking facilities,

transportation within the campus, following the

events in the campus and usage of BUCard.

To further understand the user requirements, a

persona representing the prospective users and

scenarios are developed. The scenarios are pictured in

storyboards. In the next step, the possible tasks are

analysed to develop a system map and design screens

based on relevant heuristics such that all functions are

included. The screen designs are used to build a

flipbook with which a user evaluation is conducted.

The trial results and feedbacks of the participants are

used for further improvement of the interface. A

prototype is developed based on these results and

feedbacks.

UXD for a Prototype Campus Information Kiosk

177

3.1 Heuristics of the Kiosk UXD

The design heuristics used for the proposed UXD of

kiosk included the following:

 Avoid unnecessary visual elements (Sandnes et

al., 2010).

 Make text and elements visible (Norman, 1998).

 Communicate on multiple channels (Smith et al.,

1995).

 Reveal all the needed steps from the start

(Gwizdka and Spence, 2007)

 Provide clear affordances (Sandnes et al., 2010):

 Use “confirm and next buttons” sparingly −

provide back buttons (undo) (Norman, 1998):

 Consider extraordinary users and physical

constraints (Newell and Cairns, 1993).

 Consider aesthetic of the design (Norman, 1998).

 Provide language option.

 Consider the location and placement of the kiosk.

4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

4.1 Survey

To verify the issues noted during brainstorming

among four group members with some experience of

UXD (2 PhD, 1 MS and 1 senior undergraduate

students) in the guidance of their advisor and

feedback from the students in the classroom, a survey

was conducted among prospective users (i.e.,

Boğaziçi University students and visitors). The

survey questionnaire consisted of 24 questions under

six groups. The first group of questions was designed

to inquire whether the students actually have

difficulties in finding their ways through the campus

and to learn what methods they adapt to overcome

this kind of problems. The second group of questions

was dedicated to understand where students usually

eat in the campus and whether they need any

application that could facilitate the eating and

drinking activities. The third group of questions

focused on transportation within the campus,

questioning whether there is a need to support the

existing transportation methods. The fourth part of

the survey aimed to find out whether the students are

effectively informed about the events taking place in

the campus. The fifth group of questions was related

to the effective usage of BUCard. In the last set of

questions, the students were asked to verify whether

there is a need for an information kiosk and their

expectations from such kiosk. The last question was

an open-ended question that provided the participants

opportunity to make further suggestions. The survey

was designed as an online survey and distributed via

Google Docs.

The main results of the survey based on the 71

respondents revealed that 75% of the participants

have difficulties in finding places in the campus, 56%

looked for a map of the campus when they first

arrived in the campus. Another fact is that only a few

students use car sharing and there is no request for a

platform to carry out this activity. In addition, 82%

of students favoured the idea of a kiosk to support

campus life and believed that kiosks would be helpful

for orientation through the campus and following the

events in the campus. The survey results verified the

existence of the problems that was speculated in the

beginning. The need for an information kiosk was

validated and the idea was supported by the

prospective users.

4.2 Persona and Task Scenarios

In UXD, it is very important to understand what is

going on in users’ mind. Developing empathy would

help to create this understanding of user expectation,

goals, needs, experiences and behaviour. Creating

personas is a technique to establish this empathy.

Miaskiewicz and Kozar (2011) provide a ranked list

of benefits of using personas in user-centred design

process including problem scope definition, decision

guide and improved usability,

In this step, according to survey results and the

issues covered in problem statement, a Persona which

represented a typical user of the initial interface was

created. Although a wide range of users were targeted

for the final design, in this initial design, a freshman,

who will likely using the kiosk most frequently and

would address the widest range of features, is created

as persona. The character was employed in typical

scenarios in which various tasks were simulated that

cover main features of the kiosk. The persona played

a role to show what tasks the interface could perform

and how. When the relationship between the

character and the scenario were analysed, required

tasks, such as finding the classroom, looking for

information about eating options and places, and

events in the campus, were determined to meet the

demands of the users. After tasks were specified, task

analyses were performed to identify the necessary

steps of each task.

The sufficiency of the system and the interface

was evaluated through the tasks played by the

persona. As a result, possible needs, improvements

and required tasks were specified to fulfil the needs

of potential users.

CHIRA 2018 - 2nd International Conference on Computer-Human Interaction Research and Applications

178

4.3 System Map and Screens

Considering the tasks and functions required to

perform these tasks a preliminary system map was

created and screens were designed (Figure 1 to Figure

4) with respect to the available heuristics which are

described in Section 3.1.

In the system map, main screen, image zoom

window and pop-up screen are represented with

different shapes. Besides, for the screens which have

‘return to home screen’ and ‘backward’ options

indicators (a pentagon and an arrow sign) were used

to point out that these screens have these features.

The ease of use is one of the main principles for

UXD. Therefore, simplicity was aimed in the design

of BUKIOSK. It is also visible in the system map that

the design of the interface is simplistic as the flat

hierarchy can be viewed.

4.4 The Initial UXD of the Interactive

Prototype Kiosk

The kiosk system was planned as an online platform

which gets updated information simultaneously.

Here, screen designs, features of BUKIOSK screens,

main functions and basic interactions between the

kiosk and users are explained. Besides, some

examples from different screens about main modules

of the kiosk are shown (Figure 1 to Figure 4). Screens

are in English in this article but both Turkish and

English versions are available. The layouts of the

screens were first designed in Microsoft Office

PowerPoint; and then the interactive prototype was

modelled with the help of a software solution, Axure

RP.

Main Screen (Home Screen/Welcome Screen):

This page primarily includes five touch screen

buttons which have links to each main functional

screens (Figure 1). The buttons to the main functions

“CAMPUS MAP”, “SHUTTLE”, “BUCard”,

“EAT&DRINK” and “EVENTS” are accessible on

the main page to allow users to reach required

information quickly. The buttons of Turkish and

English flags which symbolize language options are

available at the right corner of the screen. Also, there

are three shortcuts at the bottom of the screen that link

to extra functions, i.e., help, emergency and contact

information.

Campus Map Function: This function is mainly

an interactive map which shows current location of

the user and important facilities, buildings and places

such as mosques, libraries, banks, university

buildings, sports centres, infirmaries etc. For those

who want to search any building or facility, there is a

search bar on the top of the screen (Figure 2a). The

standard search result screen for buildings is shown

in Figure 2b. Back and Home buttons linked to

previous screen and main screen, respectively, are

provided.

Shuttle Function: In Shuttle Main Screen, there

are two options of two shuttle routes. Each option is

linked to Shuttle Screens which includes “Hours” and

“Routes” options.

Eat&Drink Function: The Eat&Drink Main

Screen includes three options: “Dining Halls”,

“Restaurants”, and “Cafeterias”. By tapping on

“Restaurants” or “Cafeterias” the user can display

image zoom windows that show closest restaurants or

cafeterias on an interactive map.

BUCard Function: The BUCard function offers

three options: “Balance Inquiry”, “Add Money from

Bank Card” and “ATM Locations” (Figure 3a) and

related operations are shown in Figure 3b-c.

Events Function: This function is designed to

inform people about events in the campus. On the

Events Main Screen, users can check the list of

upcoming events (Figure 4a). Each event in the list

has a link to a screen dedicated to that particular

event. The Event Screen has two options: “Event

Information” (event name, ticket price and time) and

“Find Location” (Figure 4b).

4.5 Flipbook Design and Focus Group

Evaluation

The initial design of the interface was tested by a

focus group with the help of a flipbook. Flipbook is a

loose-leaf notebook that simulates functional

interaction of the interface by displaying the screen

designs and allowing the user to pretend to ‘operate’

the interface by flipping between ‘screens’ according

to a given set of tasks. Figure 5 shows the flipbook

design and represents the movement from screen to

screen.

The flipbook was tested to understand the user

experience characteristics of the interface. In order to

evaluate the user experience of the interface with

prospective users, five Boğaziçi University students

were asked to perform the 14 tasks on the flipbook.

During the trial, completion time of the whole set of

tasks was recorded for each user, as well as task

completion rates and number of errors. Moreover, the

participants were asked for their objective evaluation

regarding the experience they had with the interface,

whether they liked it or not and whether they found it

easy to use or not. They were asked to evaluate the

likability (“How much did you like using this kiosk?).

UXD for a Prototype Campus Information Kiosk

179

Figure 1: Home screens in (a) English and (b) Turkish.

Figure 2: Campus map screens: (a) interactive campus map and search area; (b) standard search result screen for buildings.

Figure 3: BUCard menu screens: (a) main BUCard screen; (b) animation screen about BUCard insert; (c) current balance.

Figure 4: Event function screens: (a) event lists and search; (b) event screen; (c) event information; (d) event building

information.

CHIRA 2018 - 2nd International Conference on Computer-Human Interaction Research and Applications

180

Figure 5: Sample photos of the flipbook physical model.

Please evaluate from 1 to 10. 1: I hated it 10: I

loved it”) and ease of use (“How easy did you find

using the kiosk? Please evaluate from 1 to 10. 1: It

was extremely difficult 10: It was extremely easy”) in

a 10-point Likert Scale. The results are tabulated in

Table 1.

The task completion times were between 3 to 4

min. Maximum two mistakes were made by the users

but the task flow could be quickly recuperated by

using back and home screen buttons. The errors were

noted to be considered in future revisions. All tasks

were completed successfully in the end by all

participants and no one failed to complete the task

list. The interface was found to be highly easy to use

by the participants and 4 out of 5 participants rated

the interface as highly likable.

Table 1: Summary of the focus group study.

5 CONCLUSIONS

In this study, a UXD of a prototype public kiosk for

Boğaziçi University, named as BUKIOSK, was

developed. The design was completed by considering

the UXD principles. Throughout the design process it

was aimed at maximizing the user input in the design.

In this respect; survey, persona and scenario

generation, task analysis and user testing were

conducted and feedbacks were obtained during class

presentations. The problems arising from daily

campus life were the motivators to develop

BUKIOSK. The survey results confirmed that an

information kiosk is a need for Boğaziçi University

campuses. Hence, an interactive information kiosk

design, which is intuitive to learn and use, is

proposed. A fairly simple design was developed by

considering UXD principles so that users do not get

confused due to the complexity of the interactions.

As a future work, using the results of the focus

group study with the flipbook, the system map as well

as the screen designs will be improved and a more

comprehensive user testing will be conducted with

the improved prototype and final design will be

obtained.

The authors hope that the proposed framework of

UXD of a campus kiosk may serve as a reference for

other campus kiosks around the world.

REFERENCES

Astin, A., 1993. What Matters in College: Four Critical

Years Revisited, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, c1993,

p.14.

Blignaut, P.J., 2004. Computerized self-administered

questionnaires on touchscreen kiosks: Do they tell the

truth? CHI 2004, 24-29 April ׀Vienna, Austria.

Ekşioğlu, M., 2016. User Experience Design of a Prototype

Kiosk: A Case for the İstanbul Public Transportation

System. International Journal of Human–Computer

Interaction, 32(10), 802-813.

Er, E., Çağıltay, K., 2011. User Evaluation of Internet

Kiosks in University Setting. Design, User Experience,

and Usability. Pt II, HCII 2011, LNCS 6770, 394–403.

Gwizdka, J. and Spence, I., 2007. Implicit measures of

lostness and success in web navigation. Interacting with

Computers, 19, 357-369.

Johnston, M., Bangalore, S., 2004. Matchkiosk: A

multimodal interactive city guide. Proceedings of

ACL04.

Kamga, C., Yazıcı, M. A., Singhal, A., 2013.

Implementation of interactive transit information

kiosks at New York City transit facilities: Analysis of

user utilization and lessons learned. Transportation

Research Part C, 35, 218–231.

Lee, W., Castellanos, C., Choi, H.S. Chris, 2012. The Effect

of Technology Readiness on Customers' Attitudes

toward Self-Service Technology and Its Adoption; The

Empirical Study of U.S. Airline Self-Service Check-In

Kiosks. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 29 (8),

731-743.

Litsey, R., Hidalgo, S., Daniel, K., Barnett, J., Kim, A.,

Jones, S., Ketner, K., 2015. Interactive Kiosk at the

Texas Tech University Libraries. Journal of Access

Services, 12, 31–41.

Maguire, M. C., 1999. A review of user-interface design

guidelines for public information kiosk systems.

International Journal of Human–Computer Studies, 50,

263–286.

Miaskiewicz, T. and Kozar, K. A., 2011. Personas and user-

centered design: How can personas benefit product

design processes? Design Studies, 32 (5), 417-430.

1 2 3 4 5

Task completion time 3' 37'' 4' 06'' 3' 55'' 3' 20'' 3' 31''

Task completion success rate 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%

Number of errors 2 1 0 2 1

Likability 9 8 10 6 10

Ease of use 9 9 10 8 10

Participants

UXD for a Prototype Campus Information Kiosk

181

Newell, A.F. and Cairns, A.Y. 1993. Designing for

Extraordinary Users. Ergonomics in Design, 10-16.

Nielsen, J., 1994. Usability Engineering, Morgan

Kaufmann, San Francisco.

Nielsen, J., 1994a. Enhancing the explanatory power of

usability heuristics. Proceedings of ACM CHI'94

Conference, Boston, MA, April 24-28, 152-158.

Norman, D.A., 1998. The Design of Everyday Things, MIT

Press.

Paradi, J. C., Rock, A., 1997. A framework to evaluate

video banking kiosks. Omega-The International

Journal of Management Science, 26, 523–539.

Axure RP, Kiosk Prototype, https://www.axure.com/,

(accessed in May, 2018)

Sandnes, F.E., Jian, H., Huang, Y., Huang, Y., 2010. User

Interface Design for Public Kiosks: An Evaluation of

the Taiwan High Speed Rail Ticket Vending Machine.

Journal of Information Science and Engineering, 26,

307-321.

Siming, L., Niamatullah, X., Gao, J., Xu, D., Shafi, K.,

2015. Factors Leading to Students’ Satisfaction in the

Higher Learning Institutions. Journal of Education and

Practice, 6 (31).

Slack F., Rowley J., 2002. Online kiosks: the alternative to

mobile technologies for mobile users. Internet

Research, 12 (3), 248-257.

Smith, W., Dunn, J., Kirsner, K., Randell, M., 1995. Colour

in map displays: Issues for task /specific display design.

Interacting with Computers, 7, 151-165.

Tüzün, H., Telli, E., and Alır, A., 2016. Usability testing of

a 3D touch screen kiosk system for way-finding.

Computers in Human Behavior, 61, 73-79.

CHIRA 2018 - 2nd International Conference on Computer-Human Interaction Research and Applications

182