Usability evaluation in the field: lessons from a case-study involving public information kiosks

Public information kiosks are used increasingly in Singapore to provide enquiries and services to the public. Thanks to the National IT2000 plan, such kiosks are now a common sight in public places. To ensure effective use of such kiosks, a field evaluation of a number of public information systems was conducted from a human factors perspective. The paper reports the results of the evaluation for only one of the systems, namely the Postal Automated Machine (PAM) system. Subjects recruited for this user interface evaluation were required to complete a questionnaire, an interview and a performance test comprising a set of 4 tasks. Both subjective and objective data were thus collected and analyzed. Subjective satisfaction and usability ratings were then derived to characterise the information system. The results show that the PAM system was well received by users, despite existing design inadequacies. To improve its usability, some basic design recommendations were made. In addition, lessons derived from this and other case studies were used to support arguments on the need to apply both subjective and objective techniques for usability assessment. Only then can a comprehensive and reliable usability and user acceptance assessment be assured.