Designing Intuitive Point-of-Interest and Point-of-Sale Touch Interfaces

At Ventuz, we have struggled with the question of what it takes to create a great touch interface for years and have come up with some best practices for creating effective, engaging, interactive POI and POS installations. We have shared our thoughts in a blog article on UX Matters. Here is a little summary. If you want to read more and see some examples, visit the UX Matters website.

Every interactive technology that enters the market sparks a huge hype, and customers are usually eager to see it used in their next installation. But one should choose the interactive technology—for example, touch, multi-touch, gesture, or voice—that best fits a particular installation carefully. A complex, detailed interface is best operated via a sensitive touch screen, while more entertaining, playful installations can utilize gesture control systems. Usability is key, and rapid learnability and discoverability should be a central issue.

Naturally, the navigation interface should be easy to operate. But what if the content requires many levels of information and a large number of categories? Try to keep the visitor entertained while they are using the interface. Present a bit of information at every level, and let them decide whether they need or want to go deeper.

Although a great number of people use touch devices on a daily basis, an interface needs to be clear about which elements are touchable and which aren’t. Users are quickly disappointed if the interface doesn’t react as they have expected. Thus, touchable items need to be easily identifiable, maybe through a special design, such as color or highlights.

In any case, every interface should be tested with a group of people who are unfamiliar with the concept you are following. Usability tests are essential and too often forgotten or skipped for reasons of budget and time. Yet, in a time where each touch interface competes with phones and tablets and all those everyday devices that users love and are familiar with, you should make certain that they will love your interface just as much.

Read the entire article on UX Matters.