New “hygienic interface” technology could drastically increase the number of safe interactions customers can have with self-service checkouts before they need cleaning.
Design agency Special Projects has developed an algorithm designed to significantly change the way customers interact with self-checkouts, ticket machines and ATMs.
Its “Moving Buttons” concept, which can be uploaded to any device with a single software update, will intelligently move the position of the buttons on the screen so that up to 50 customers can scan and pay for goods without touching the same areas.
Once all the available positions have been used up, the software will alert a member of staff to come and clean the kiosk.
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According to a recent study, COVID-19 can survive on surfaces like touchscreens and banknotes for up to four weeks, making it a key area of risk for virus transmission.
“The pandemic has changed how we interact with our physical environment in so many ways, and we are all used to paying attention to the things we touch,” Special Projects principal Adrian Westaway said.
“The digital kiosk space in particular sees hundreds of people every day touching the same spots when purchasing products, which can be a risk in itself.
“We therefore wanted to visualise how this transaction could be made safer through innovative interface design, and put customers at lower risk of coming into contact with other customers. The Moving Buttons interface provides a very simple but potentially very impactful solution to this.”
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