Through discussions with my my friends and colleagues I've come to a better understanding of how I define a walk up interface. Walks up interfaces are similar to kiosks, but more contextually integrated with their environment and cover a broader range of physical forms. The term kiosk evokes certain physical characteristic. Potentially, walk up interfaces could be a kiosk or it could be that the integrated interfaces in our car, in our home, and in our lives are the next evolution of what kiosks once were. There is no denying that the screens in our lives are and have been becoming more integrated.

The DVD rental system I wrote about last week could be considered a kiosk, but its really more of a glorified, elaborate vending machine, right? Specifically, walk up interfaces are just that; any interface you walk up to, an interface that is approached in transit. When you arrive you perform a task, a purchase, a check-in, etc. and you're on your way. Whether the physical form of the interface is a kiosk, a vending machine, a self check-out system or self service gift registry, all are share the qualities outlined above. The walk up interface which recently caught my eye is the finger print identification check-out (also at the Metro Market around the corner form my home).

During some remodeling recently they installed a finger print identification system in each of the checkout lanes. It physically sits as an integral part of the credit card swiping device, where you stand and pay for your groceries. Before you can pay with your finger, you need to set up an account so the system knows who you are. To set up an account you simply approach a kiosk next to the customer service desk, enter your credit or debit card information, associated or set up a saver card, scan your finger three times and you're done. The first time I did this I could not believe how easy it was. I'll admit, I had my doubts, to set up a biometric authentication system in my neighborhood grocery store? I continued to the checkout.

The clerk began ringing up my groceries. 'Do you have a Pick and Save card?' she asked. 'I believe it's in there.' I replied and pointed to the finger scanner. The sociological impact in how people check out had obviously been impacted. Mainly because check out clerks generally ask you for your saver card at the beginning of the transaction. That way you see your deductions as they ring up your groceries. The new process was definitely the something the clerks would need practice doing and would need some time getting used to. This was particularly obvious when she hit the incorrect button a couple of times when she was done ring up the groceries.

The check out clerk indicated I could go ahead. I pressed 'Pay by Touch', placed my finger on the scanner (see above photo) and it recognized me. I entered my phone number, picked which account I wanted to pay with, signed my name, received a print out of my receipt (with my signature on it) and was on my way. So what's in this for me? And, what are other sociological implications of this tracking system? Besides it being really, really neat, I guess there is the connivence factor. I no longer need to carry a wallet. They claim that 'fingers are faster' but faster than swiping a credit card? I'm not so sure. One way they have streamlined the system in the the past few weeks is they have defaulted the account selection (if you only have one in the system). This was a great improvement. If I only have one account, I'm probably going to pay with that one. They could potential eliminate the first step too of having to select Pay by Touch too and have the payment process initiate when it recognizes any finger on the scanner. Quite frankly, I'm tired of signing things too. Starbucks no longer requires me to. The difference is mainly that people read their receipts to see if they were overcharged as they're walking out the door. Now if we could set up their website so I check this at home, at my own convenience, we'd really have a nice system. But who really benefits from this? I can't help but think it's not the consumer and its really the store. They get more accurate records because you never forget your card (or end up using the clerks), they get your finger print, which weather you want to give that to them is ultimately up to you, but it does ring of Big Brother quite a bit. So then why use their system?

Personally I've always thought that they would always be able to find anyone (except Osama). Lets face it, if someone really wanted to find me they could and would pretty easily. My main reason for buying into it is convenience and I believe its only a matter of time before we see more biometric system like this. If I can have some input into making the systems easier to use for people, maybe at he end of the day I've done my job. My main concern is for the property rights of the data generated by the system. Who owns the rights to my shopping habits? Its my personal information right? But it's equally the stores too, they're just tracking their sales. But do they have the right to track who those sale are associated with? I vaguely remember an NPR bit about a man who slipped and fell on wet floor in a grocery store. He broke his leg. The store looked into his shopping records through his saver card and found that every day he goes to the liquor store and buys booze. He dropped the case against the store because they claimed he was most likely drinking at the time and had the evidence to prove it. But did they have the right to use that information against him? Will life insurance agencies offer lower premiums to people with good eating habits? Can car insurance companies use the black box information from your car (which is becoming quite common) to charge you higher premiums because you done use your blinker? The question are endless and the tracking and recording devices are only becoming more and more prevalent. In our cars in our phones and soon in every product purchased at Walmart. The visualization of this data will be what makes it meaningful and useful to consumers and businesses of the future. As for some of the other questions, many can not be answered at this point in time.

I've recently become more aware of the walk up interfaces which have become more and more common in our everyday lives. Some are quite good, while others astonish me that someone actually believes that what they have created will perform the task at hand. Walk ups have become more common, checking in a the airport, at the grocery store, at Home Depot, at the post office, and we will only continue to see more and more of them. The first walk up I'm going to write about is a particularly poor one, the $1 DVD rental machine at my local grocery store.

I love what this machine promises a new DVD release for $1 a day. Attempting to rent a DVD from this machine was one of the worst experiences I've had using an automated system like this. It is one of the worst interfaces I've used ever. The machine is shaped similar to a refrigerator, a box about six feet tall. There is a screen about head height, recessed in to the front of the unit. The primary method for browsing the DVD collection, selecting one and renting it is done through the four buttons directly below where the screen is recessed (see photo). This is the first major flaw in the system. The four buttons all point up and correspond to four options on the screen. The main problem with this is that the buttons always point up to the active selection on the screen. In order to move the selection around, say, to move through the list of movies, you literally find yourself pressing an up button to move the cursor down!

The selection process, and the transaction is controlled through these wacky up buttons that move the selection, in just about every direction. Besides the obvious disconnect of an up button moving the selection down there is a physical disconnect too. Because the buttons are on the front of the machine and the selections are on the recessed screen, there is a physical disconnect that occurs as well. Because the screen is recessed there is physical space between what your doing and what is happening on the screen.

But nonetheless, I was able to fumble through the process, and with a small line of people now standing behind me, the machine spit out my DVD and I was on my way. I watched the DVD that night and gloated in the fact that it was only costing me a dollar. The next day when I went to return the DVD the fun continued.

In order to return a DVD, the machine requires that you insert a credit card. This seemed strange. I had to insert a credit card to begin the process. It knew what DVD I had taken and since each DVD has a bar code why does it need my credit card again. This unnecessary step prevents someone form dropping of a DVD for you, without having your credit card. And while it is true that you may be charged and additional dollar if you keep it another day, the system has all my information, just let me know it late and that I will be charged. I have a sneaking suspicion that the system was somehow built with a credit card initiating all processes and literally can not funtion with first inserting a credit card.

I put in my card and used the goofy buttons to navigate to the return option (and I'm not even going to discuss task flow analysis but let's just say the screen flow in relation to the task at hand is horrible too). A little door opened up where the DVD was originally dispensed. I popped it back in, it spit it back out. So I turned it around and popped it back in and it spit it out. I stood there literally scratching my head. I looked closer. In ten point type next to the door reads a paragraph of text describing how to position the bar code on the DVD so the machine will accept it. Ah ha! Success. Later I came to thinking about this experience and how a simple picture or diagram of the DVD, positioned correctly, adjacent to the door would have saved me and many others time and frustration. There is a reason why they have the little picture of the credit card next to the card reader at the gas pump and not a paragraph of text explaining how to properly insert the card. When you're standing there, you see the little picture of the card and you realize that you have a card too. Intuitively you want to make the card in your hand look like the one in the picture because you know it what the system wants you to do. Intuitive thought can be meaningful and can even facilitate tasks we're trying to achieve. I just wish the makers of the DVD rental system had considered it's value.

GUIde Book is a website dedicated to preserving and showcasing Graphical User Interfaces. It is also the first example I've seen that documents, preserves, and to some degree, glorifies graphic user interfaces. I'm glad to see that people are recognizing that the environments we live in and work in every day are significant. System environments are significant. They're a place where millions of people communicate, create, live and work every day. One of the benefits of having things in one place, as in the GUIde, is that you can see side-by-side the differences that would otherwise not be so obvious. Seeing this got me thinking about some of the diference I've become aware of working in Windows XP at work all day and comming home and working in OSX.

OSX it feels like home, and it should. I'm mainly at home when I use it. The feeling of being home is a particularly acute contrast to the steril busisness environemt of XP. One great feature (and there are many) of OSX is the addition of the application menu in the menu bar. This addition was simply a menu bar item that takes on the name of the application that you are working in. This little addition does wonders insofar as clarifying what application functionality is specifically being referred to. This is missing menu bar item is a gaping hole in the XP interface model and becomes very obvious after seeing it in action in OSX. Take something as simple as application preferences. The XP interface model has them placed in the 'File' menu. In actuality, preferences don't belong in the 'File' menu at all (unless they were truly preferences for that file, which they are not). Preferences are a property of the application and belong rightly placed in the application menu, where they reside in OSX. This is just one example of the sort comings of Windows XP.

When OSX was released a few years ago and I loaded it onto my G4 I was surprised by a few things. One of them was the lack of being able to maximize windows. This bothered me for a while but I soon wrote it off as something you simply couldn't do. Earlier last year I finally got dual monitors set up at work. After working at home on dual monitors for quite some time I was relieved to finally have this set up at wok too. Having both environments set up in more similar ways revealed some interesting distinctions about how the two environment handle dual monitor support differently (again an example of when having things side distinctions become clear).

In Windows XP, with dual monitors there are limitations to how you can position windows and work with in the application environment. The multiple document implementation in XP is far more restricting that in OSX. In XP for example, with dual monitors you are sill restricted to moving windows within the application work space which is limited to one monitor. While you can place pallets on the additional monitor to extend your workspace you are still limited to where you can move the window or document your working on (this however is not true for applications which launch multiple instances like IE, which is another story all together).

With dual monitors on OSX you can literally move anything anywhere you want. The concept of maximizing a window then begins to break down. What are you maximizing to? Once you have a significant amount of work space, the concept of maximizing a window fails. Considering the current direction of display technology (becoming larger for less money) Windows maximizing functionality will soon be worthless.