Ask Billy: An Informative Kiosk in a University

The digital era heavily influences various industries and aspects of living on integrating technology to enhance the quality of life. Information kiosks are free-standing units, interactive or not interactive, deployed as a platform for efficient dissemination of accurate information. It is usually located on public places, and highly utilized in commercialized establishments including airports, malls, hotels, et. al. It is one of the technologies that showed strong prospect to assist people, henceforth, universities are adapting kiosks to create an efficient learning environment. A university is one of the determining factors that can build the quality of tertiary education. Yet, several universities in the Philippines still struggles on integrating technology to create an efficient learning setting. The university utilizes a limited number of traditional floor plans to identify the facilities. Additionally, inquiries about university-related transactions and processes are still catered by the employees and staffs, thus, an overwhelming population of students to inquire occurs sporadically. Subsequently, the researchers enhanced the concept of information kiosks, implementing multiple components of multimedia arts and animation, to improve user experience and interactivity. “Ask Billy” is an information kiosk that provides guidance throughout a university including identifying a facility's location, answering of frequently-asked-questions categorized with menu-based interface associated with related offices, and promoting the university. Aside from that, the user interface is enhanced through multimedia components that can simulate multiple senses and enhance memory retention- this feature is exceptional in comparison with traditional information kiosks.