What should we do about public touch screens in the Covid era?
They need a rethink.
Yuck!
Though they were probably always a bit unsanitary, during the Covid-19 crisis (I like to call it the Covidian) using any interface that was inherently communal became a not-so-great idea.
While research seems to show that the virus doesn’t live long on many surfaces and that it’s primarily transmitted via exhalation, surface transmission is still a risk.
Further mutations of the virus or future plagues may be different so I thought it was important to try to define proactively how these interactions might need to change or envision alternatives to current public UI; in particular, public/communal touch screens which seem to be the most problematic.
Personal touch screens used in devices like phone, tablets, and desktops are probably here to stay. Say yes to being addicted to the scrolling feed! /jk
Where are they?
Everyday public touchscreens
- The ubiquitous Point of Sale (PoS) terminals found in most stores. These often still require a signature and/or interaction with the touchscreen and numeric keypad even if using a contactless payment method via a phone or smartwatch.
- Self-checkout at the grocery stores.
- Cash register screens that employees must use.
- Office check-in kiosks. Ironically, many of these are located in medical facilities.
- Parking payment devices.
- Tablet-based ordering at restaurants. Although in-person dining bans have effectively taken these off the table for now. Pun intended.
- Vending machines.
- General Information kiosks at places like offices, theme parks, museums, airports, etc.
- UIs used in industry.
- Cars and other vehicles.
- And many more…
Manual interfaces
- All non-automatic doors.
- Elevator buttons.
- Railings.
- Communal trash bins.
- Lavatory equipment.
- Crosswalk buttons.
The list goes on for this as well!
Why Touchscreens?
Advantages
Let’s start with asking ourselves why public touchscreens? What are/were the advantages?
- Anyone can come up and use them. No personal computer, phone or tablet required.
- Because it was digital, businesses could more or less easily update the interface on the fly as opposed to manual buttons, etc.
- With the ability to drag and zoom if needed, they are a more visually and engaging medium from a tactile standpoint than non-touch.
- You could use snazzy images and videos.
- As an organization you seemed cooler. “Look, we’re modern!”
- It could replace people (or at least some of their duties).
- Capture graphic based input like signatures. An outdated legal requirement for many merchant transactions but still present for many.
- For registers, because you’re not locked into physical buttons, you could present better options that used graphics or switch options on the fly.
- The interface is always on so you don’t have to deal with pesky human schedules or availability.
Looking at this list, I’m noticing that most of the advantages are from a business/organizational standpoint and not a whole lot from a user perspective.
It’s about the Biz
So what we really need to address are some of the business problems for when people can’t (or don’t want to) put “finger to glass” anymore but you have these touchscreen-based devices you’ve purchased and would still like to leverage.
From a business standpoint, the goal is to allow someone to use a communal device and interact with it, while mitigating or removing the real and perceived risk in such a way that doesn’t require skin-to-device contact.
By doing so, we continue to reduce overall labor costs and increase service opportunities (as in more checkouts), provide on site 24/7 services, gather analytics, differentiate the brand, and maintain UI flexibility.
Factors that affect screen usage
Perceived Risk Levels
Let’s define the various contexts that interactions occur within and the risk:
- Personal space or household — Very Low Risk.
- Small non-household group that uses the device regularly — Low Risk if sanitization procedures are in place and people agree to abide by them.
- Many people in the same organization — Medium Risk but can be mitigated with proper sanitation procedures.
- Random people in a public space — High Risk and mitigation cannot be relied upon.
For those who need to use device services in a public space and are worried about infection, there is a strong disincentive to use them and either ignore them or find a human to help.
Who needs or doesn’t need to use the touch screens?
These people exist on a spectrum and do their own risk evaluation according to perceived need and the alternatives:
- Those who don’t care about infection or urgently need the service.
- Those who care somewhat and use some other part besides their fingertips, like an elbow or knuckle or have a stylus/glove.
- Part of a group that must trust their procedures as in an organization.
- People that don’t really need the service, have alternatives or are worried enough to forgo the service entirely.
It’s the last category that is problematic. There might also be some legal exposure in the other categories due to perceived services exclusion from an accessibility standpoint and possible liability stemming from claims of infection via usage.
Ok, what do we do about it?
Standard solutions (pros and cons)
- Don’t do anything. People get sick, they get sick. This might have some legal and PR implications… /s
- Sanitize the interfaces after each use or very often. This is straightforward but can become very labor and resource intensive. It may also not be practical from some devices. For example, standalone interfaces found in parking structures. Where someone is nearby to sanitize and the usage is occasional, this can be viable.
- Provide, require, sell or advise using a stylus or compatible glove. Effective, but requires people to use their own or the business needs to provide access to fresh/cleaned ones.
- Have sanitation stations available nearby or people carry their own sanitizer. Requires regular monitoring and resupply.
- Advise people to use a knuckle or elbow. It’s easy to give directions but the UI may need to have much larger tappable areas. They may still be reluctant to interact.
- For PoS machines, don’t require signatures or a PIN anymore (with some exceptions) and only accept contactless payments. Less usage friction but may or may not be practical from a legal / business / contract standpoint.
- For checkouts, each employee gets their own tablet. Can be more costly than good sanitation procedures.
- Use people instead to do the job or as a fallback. A lot like not doing anything and this method might just transfer the danger from users to employees with the end result that it is still off-putting to users.
- Various combinations of the approaches in this list.
Fun fact: Credit card companies no longer require signatures for transactions but it’s often built into the hardware to need one or the human processes like at restaurants.
Some Non-standard solutions (pros and cons)
- Non-touch, gesture-driven interfaces such as eye or hand tracking tech (Leap Motion gestures) — Good alternatives but perhaps pretty expensive to implement. May require user training and software retrofit. If still using their hands, they need to not accidentally touch the screen. Check out Leap Motion if you’re curious.
- Voice-driven UI. State of the art is now workable and more prevalent. People will need some training and noisy environments might be challenging.
- A tele-services employee helps remotely. This works but may be very labor-intensive.
- People can use their personal phones instead via an app or QR code keyed to the public device. Public UI only needs some augmenting or these might even replace it. If they don’t have a compatible phone or can’t understand how to use it, that’s a problem though.
- Foot based interface or something that can use an elbow or pressure/non-skin based contact. Could use a trackpad or other tech. Needs to be tough and probably works for more gross-motor interfaces but difficult to use for a long time or on tasks that require more fine-tuned interaction.
- Some sort of automatic UV sanitation that is safe and sterilizes the UI after each use. Works but effective UV treatments are perhaps not safe to be exposed directly in the presence of humans for now. Higher power usage costs perhaps.
- A combination of all the approaches in this list.
Any good candidates?
If I have time I might jump into each of the scenarios in a series of additional postings. The standard solutions are pretty straight forward but with various advantages and disadvantages. Let’s identify some criteria, take one of the “crazier” approaches based on them and play around with it.
Some Criteria
- Should be relatively cheap.
- Require as little retrofitting as possible.
- Retrofitting is straightforward if needed.
- Works in a fully public space.
- Doesn’t need to be resupplied on a regular basis.
- Doesn’t require the user to have something special (stylus, phone, etc.).
- Can be used in any environment.
- Doesn’t need sanitization.
- No skin to skin contact needed.
- Accessible to all.
- No extra labor involvement.
- Safe to use.
- Can be used frequently or for a long time.
Warning: things are about to get a little wacky.
And the nominee is…
The only approach I can see that meets all the criteria except for the last (long term usage will probably be tiring), is a Foot Based UI. Let’s be fancy and call it Pedi Control…
Weird I know, but we already use it for potentially contaminated situations like trash cans. People have even started to “shake hands” that way!
While it’s not accessible for people who can’t use their feet, it’s probably accessible to everyone else. In that case, you’ll want to provide fallback interaction choices with a touchscreen and sanitation procedures. If the standard UI isn’t being used regularly and cleaned often, it’s much safer. On the flip side, those who can’t use their hands might find it a blessing.
Usage for long intervals as in cash registers might be difficult. In those more organizational use cases, it might continue to be better to utilize touch screens and take a more procedural, sanitation based approach, or issue styluses, gloves or personal devices.
The foot-based method could use something like an old school trackball, a “dance pad” or simply foot-operated buttons depending in the complexity of the UI it needs to control.
There might be some software updates to accommodate the new approach, directions and signage.
Old gaming trackballs have been used for years and it’s a solid technology. Anything that needs to be hooked up to a computer generally has some form of mouse based support via a wired or bluetooth connection. You could roll the trackball to choose an option and press to select. Even drawing a signature could be done, since the current signing process for PoS machines isn’t super accurate anyway. Stomping might take a toll but I’m sure something can be engineered to take it.
Possible products that could be utilized
So, that’s my pick if you want to keep a similar level of interactivity as a touch screen and meet the criteria above.
The business case is still there for Public UI, but I believe organizations need to rethink or at least evaluate how it works in order to keep the devices relevant in a time of heightened awareness over fear of infection. Those that recognize and try to deal with the problem will have an advantage over those that don’t.
