Research on Walk-up-and-use systems

Question

I am interested in research on Walk-up-and-use systems.

From what I found so far, Walk-up-and-use systems are described as

• "system that requires no explicit user training" (hci-hub, FH Kaiserslautern)
• "a system that needs to be so self-explanatory that first-time or one-time users can use the system effectively without any prior introduction/training" (Encyclopedia, Interaction Design Foundation)
• other equally short describtions

followed by the usual examples: ATMs, Ticket machines and kiosk systems.

Are there any scientific publications dealing specifically with this kind of systems, mainly from the usability point of view?

I'd also be interested in case studies mentioning problems with public service systems.

Answer 1

A scientific publication:

Martin C. Maguire Senior Researcher, Loughborough University

A review of user-interface design guidelines for public information kiosk systems

http://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=FCZ_GjgAAAAJ&citation_for_view=FCZ_GjgAAAAJ:2osOgNQ5qMEC

Answer 2

The kiosks at museums are good examples for walk-up-and-use systems. I presume you could find relevant publications about them. This report by the Fluid project at OCAD University seemed to be good one that I was able to quickly search.

The ACM Digital Library is a very good place to dig into if you are looking for research publications, although you might have to pay for most of the articles. You could also try searching on Google Scholar, which might bring up publications which are free to access...

Answer 3

Surely there are, but I have to think where they should be.

Surely you won't be able to find them under the term UX as their UI was pretty much the way they are today by the time this term was coined.

In the past, related fields were ergonomy (which belonged to psychology) and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). Perhaps industrial design could also be a good starting place if the former two aren't sufficient.

What I would do is search for journals in these topics at a more professional library, eg, library of TU Berlin and Humboldt in your case, or British Library for example.

The catalog and article listings of these journals are always digital, and most of them are more or less digitalized by their publisher - Springer, ACM, IEEE -, but these places might keep a copy.

Some of the digital catalogs are only available for licensed libraries, you can't even search them from home.

A standard search in the usual systems - Google Scholar, IEEExplore, ACM, JSTor - could also bring you results.

Look for specifics - Automated teller machine, bank-o-mat, kiosk terminal, etc - rathet than terms which might or might not get applied.

Answer 4

Also look here: CASSM and cognitive walkthrough: usability issues with ticket vending machines. It's a "cognitive Walkthrough, to identify usability issues underlying the use made of two London Underground ticket vending machines."

Answer 5

Might be worth looking at ambient systems. There's an implicit assumption that most of these systems should be usable without prior learning.