Define Kiosk

Define Kiosk – What Are Kiosks?

How to define kiosk? Maybe our favorite is to call it an unattended public structure or mechanism that provides information and/or lets someone conduct transactions? Europe likes to say “semi-attended” as well.

Kiosks, with their origins in the round structures in Turkey where village notices were published, are both easy and hard to define. This ambiguity can be a source of confusion, but understanding their historical context can provide clarity.

But then came computers, the internet and electronic kiosks.  The problem comes in whether you consider them from a functional sense, or from a vertical market sense.  Companies like NCR like it when their overall numbers for self-service go up when it is a POS terminal.  Is a hybrid POS terminal a kiosk? 

Example: Walmart Self Checkout is a hybrid POS terminal

In some ways yes but overall, no. Many will refer to mall kiosks but those are more accurately RMUs or remote merchandising units. They are not electronic kiosks though many of those RMUs use kiosks.

It can be not very clear.

Generally a kiosk is a single platform/screen where a single user views and/or interacts with it at a time.  Exceptions exist and can be immigration or border kiosks where the officer also has a screen to work with and monitor. Sometimes you have two-sided kiosks (front and back), which are designed to serve multiple users simultaneously or to provide different information on each side.

Example: wayfinding information smart city is two sided often

The ATM market has worked very hard to brand their “kiosks” as “ATMs” and as the kiosk industry we generally respect that.  The fact is though, on a functional level, an “Automated Teller Machine” is a kiosk. Maybe “Remote Automated Teller” would have been more descriptive but “RAT” isn’t a desirable acronym. ATMs are the same as a photo kiosk or a Bill Pay Station or any other number of vertically-named “kiosks.”   Nowadays people refer to Bitcoin ATMs or Bitcoin Kiosks. In a legal sense ATMs are “money transmitters” and saying Bitcoin ATM instead of Bitcoin Kiosk, adds a certain “sanctioned” perception that deployers prefer.

Self-service is a primary criterion. Is the customer or employee enabled to get what they need? That gets into attended, unattended, and McDonalds-Europe “semi-attended.” Cardholder-activated terminals are the class in PCI SSC.

Old Definitions

• From Cambridge — a small building where things such as candy, drinks, or newspapers are sold through an open window
• Oxford — a small shop, open at the front, where newspapers, drinks, etc. are sold. In some countries kiosks also sell food and things used in the home.
• Etymology — 1620s, “kind of open pavilion” (made of light wood, etc., often supported by pillars), from French kiosque (17c.), which is (along with German and Polish kiosk) from Turkish koshk, kiöshk “pavilion, summer house,” from Persian kushk “palace, villa; pavilion, portico.” They were introduced in Western Europe 17c. as ornaments in gardens and parks. Later of street newsstands (1865), on some resemblance of shape, a sense perhaps originally in French. Modern sense has been influenced by British telephone kiosk (1928).
• 1472 – Mehmed II the Conqueror built the Tiled Kiosk [see Wikipedia]

The closest “kiosks” to those might be modern-day RMUs or Remote Merchandising Units.  Digital signage displays (airport departure and arrival times) centered in airport terminals are variations of the “informational kiosk”

Kiosk Meaning Modern Definition

• From Los Alamos Report 1994 –

  Until recently, it was a small, rugged standalone structure often used as a newsstand, bandstand, or other commercial enterprise. The definition is evolving to include computer systems found in public places. These public computer systems are designed to provide an alternative avenue to reach information and services. The user is presented with an attractive structure that has been designed to provide a simple, friendly interface to novice computer users. It performs an easily automated task, freeing personnel from boring, tedious labor. Link

  • Types of Kiosks According To Los Alamos Report

    • They are being used as a primary tool to improve the effectiveness of limited personnel and provide easy and convenient access to a wide range of services. Most of these kiosks are built to perform one of the following functions:
      • To advertise a commercial product.
      • To collect or dispense specific information.
      • To exchange information, funds, and/or services.

• ChatGPT 2023

  — It is a small, free-standing physical structure used for displaying information or selling products or services. It typically includes an interactive screen or touchpad for users to access information or complete transactions. They are commonly found in public places such as airports, shopping malls, and train stations.

• Kiosk Industry

  • A self-service kiosk or computer kiosk (some like an electronic kiosk) is a standalone terminal used by customers and employees to provide a self-service channel for general transactions. They can be informational (a wayfinding provides directions, for example), or they can be transactional (e.g., Verizon bill pay).

• Investopedia

  • Refers to a small, temporary, stand-alone booth used in high-traffic areas for marketing purposes.It is usually manned by one or two individuals who help attract attention to the booth to get new customers. Retail locations are frequently located in shopping malls or on busy city streets with significant foot traffic and provide owners with a low-cost alternative to market their products or services.

• KioskMarketplace (marketing ad-driven portal) 2023 Census

  • “An interactive, self-serve device provided by a venue, not the user, that helps the user do something that is informational and/or transactional that streamlines, automates or eliminates wait or cost.”

What They Are NOT

• For purposes of market research they are not SCOs at Krogers or Walmart. Walmart Self Checkout is not a kiosk. Those are hybrid POS checkouts. See Walmart Self Checkout Removing – Fact Check or Walmart Self Checkout NCR – By The Numbers
• Again, for purposes of market research they are NOT ATMs, though there are now Bitcoin ATMs and those are built by kma manufacturers.
• Those nice Verizon RMUs at airports?  They are not kiosks.
• Digital signage?  The DS industry likes to insert the word “Interactive” but that is irrelevant for purposes of digital signage. Interactive is their path to ROI.
• EV Chargers — that gets complicated as there are multiple models and some qualify and some do not.
• Smart City?  that’s borderline… Smart City is unique though in that it actually supports the revenue share model. Cities get a portion of ad revenue. IKE gets the rest.