Kiosk Interface Design Guidelines

Outcome

We handed off a validated set of best-practice design guidelines for entertainment and hospitality kiosk interfaces, alongside a journey map exemplifying the findings and recommended next steps for continuing the guidelines.

Overview

The sponsor was Frogslayer, a custom software development firm partnering with food and entertainment brands to build guest-facing digital products. We were asked to construct a standardized set of evidence-based design guidelines that would help future kiosk projects avoid usability pitfalls.

The Problem

Kiosks are increasingly common across industries for their convenience and cost-efficiency, yet their design still leaves users consistently frustrated.

Unlike mobile or web apps, kiosks lack a standard design framework focused on user comfort, so the same usability pain points recur.

My Role

I worked as a UX Designer & Researcher, researching the current state of kiosk design, building the base user flow, constructing the usability-testing prototype, and iterating on insights across three rounds of testing.

I was also the team’s primary point of contact with Frogslayer’s product team, maintaining both sides’ understanding of the project’s progression, and co-led internal planning toward the project’s goal.

Researching

Clarifying Scope with the Sponsor

The request arrived vague, as “design kiosk interface guidelines”. We audited the existing Figma prototype from Frogslayer’s prior internal research with their product team and settled on four scope focuses:

Establishing the Evidence Base

We built the foundation on two stakeholder perspectives: the producer side and the consumer side: how businesses build kiosks, and how users experience them.

Starting with the producer side, we focused on two questions:

• What makes up a kiosk interface?
• How are companies designing kiosk interfaces today?

Secondary Research

“What makes up a kiosk interface?”

We reviewed articles, journals, and literature across the four dimensions a kiosk interface has to account for: interface elements, consumer psychology, loyalty programs, and physical kiosk constraints.

The recurring gaps we surfaced:

• Usability challenges: slow task completion, environmental noise, unclear affordances
• Design pitfalls: inconsistent touch targets, low contrast, inaccessible screen heights
• Function-first over discoverability: interfaces optimize for transactions, not exploration

Competitive Analysis

“How are companies designing kiosk interfaces today?”

We audited kiosk-industry sites, reviews, and product imagery to map the design conventions incumbents currently share and the opportunity gaps our guidelines could target.

What we found:

• Consistent labeling of each screen’s purpose at the top
• Interactive elements clustered center-screen, with names kept to one or two words
• Opportunity gap: little use of space outside the center, with edges left empty to avoid cognitive overload

Gathering Firsthand User Insight

After understanding the producer's side, we shifted to the consumer's perspective to answer the following questions:

• How do users currently interact with kiosks?
• How do users actually behave on kiosks in context?

Interviews & Survey

“How do users currently interact with kiosks?”

We interviewed users for firsthand stories and ran a companion survey with the same guiding questions to reach a broader audience. Together they surfaced how users currently perceive, navigate, and disengage from kiosk flows.

What we found:

• Confidence stems from familiarity: users treated kiosks as an extension of touch-screen patterns they already know
• Confusion arises when options become overwhelming or poorly labeled
• Loyalty programs are rarely used, cited as not worth the effort, annoying sign-up, or simply forgotten

Field Observations

“How do users actually behave on kiosks in context?”

We observed four participants at a partner indoor entertainment center completing two real tasks (buying a play card and checking / reloading balance), converting each session into a user journey map to surface friction that self-report couldn’t catch.

What we found:

• Payment transactions were the biggest point of confusion: tap vs. swipe vs. insert, and which reader to use
• Kiosk lag and inefficient screen-space use disrupted flow and hid important information
• Countdown sounds and abrupt auditory feedback reduced user confidence mid-task

Ideating

From Individual Sketching to a Testable User Flow

We developed the user flow in two passes, individual sketching and feature selection, then wireframing, so usability tests could apply our findings to an interactive flow.

Individual Sketching & Feature Selection

To ideate in extensive detail, we first individually brainstormed through quick sketching arcade kiosk user flows before reconvening. After discussing and assessing each other’s individual feature ideas, we voted on each other's works to decide which features to include in the usability test flow.

Wireframing on the Observed Base Flow

To focus more on the features’ implementation, we imported a base kiosk arcade user flow based on the one utilized during user observations to quickly expand the wireframe into an interactive prototype ready for use.

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Verifying

Validating and Retesting with User Insights

We ran 19 test sessions across 3 rounds of moderated testing at the busy Purdue Memorial Union, making 6 iterations between rounds.

The prototype was a research instrument, iterated between rounds to address recorded friction points and modified to assess user feedback on specific findings.

Round 1

7 users

Round 1 focus: Verify that the PMU testing environment was representative of a busy arcade, and observe how users interacted with the initial prototype for the first time

“Cognitive overload on the card-loading selection page”

Simplified the card-loading page to match the rest of the flow

“Consistent resistance to signup, plus confusion that loyalty required an entry fee”

Loyalty pop-up with a clear comparison of member tiers and deals to compel interaction

“Ending-page orientation broke layout consistency”

Flipped the end page from vertical to horizontal

“Payment buttons read as different elements from the rest of the screens”

Redesigned payment buttons to match the site’s button system

Round 2

7 users · A/B test

Round 2 focus: Because most Round 1 users didn’t attempt to click the sign-up-as-member button, we surfaced membership as a pop-up to force interaction with it, then ran an A/B test through the pop-up to gauge two candidate loyalty-program models, tier-based (upgrade for perks) vs. upsell-based (spend $20, play with $25), in the context of the entertainment industry

Upsells engaged even hesitant users, but a recurring “might be a catch” mistrust surfaced around unclear deals and member pricing

Selected upsells over tiers as the loyalty model, then modified upsell prices and deals for clarity to build trust

“Reset button unused in every observed session”

Replaced the unused reset button with a sign-in button

Round 3

5 users · final validation

Round 3 focus: Verify the validity of the iterations we made after Round 2 using an improved prototype. Because Round 2’s iterations tested well, we did not iterate on the prototype further after this round, and instead applied the findings directly into the deliverable guideline.

Round 3 confirmed that the Round 2 iterations were effective, so instead of another prototype pass, we recorded the findings from this round directly into the deliverable guideline:

• Users found the interface intuitive due to the one-at-a-time instructions that prevented them from feeling overwhelmed.
• Users often missed “Join for Free” while skimming, even though joining being free was the biggest conversion driver. As a result, we recommended in the guideline to place key information at the top of any membership prompt.
• Users habitually rejected memberships because they assumed the membership required cost or commitment. To combat this, the guideline recommends prominent cost transparency on any membership prompt.
• Colors were well-liked as they are utilized to guide the user throughout the user flow through contrast.

Across all three rounds, the feature that received the most changes was the loyalty program, specifically iterations for clarity of its labelling of the “Join for Free” upsell with pricing, as we needed to actively combat users’ habitual suspicion of the membership requiring monetary cost.

See the full flow (all screens)

Takeaways

Prototype as Research Instrument

Designing a prototype as a tool and not as a product heavily differed from my previous projects, where the end goal was to construct a prototype for developers to implement. As a result, I prioritized research verification over design aesthetics when designing the prototype.

Environment as Design Material

Due to the project's scope being primarily the entertainment industry, the team and I needed to consider the appropriate environment for testing, leading us to use a nearby campus building known for its consistently busy atmosphere. From this project, I find that it is important to heavily assess user feedback in the context of the environment as a factor of a user's experience with a product.