We live in a world where hard and fast categories are increasingly being challenged. Concrete definitions might be attractive for their simplicity and clarity. But they remove much of the nuance, and colour and texture that is our actual lived experience of how things are.
Much of the impetus behind the drive towards blurred lines and spectrums comes from the world of tech. Not that long ago, no one would have even dreamt of confusing a phone with a computer. Now we all take it for granted that we all walk around with devices that by name we still refer to as phones, but that can do pretty much everything a laptop can do.
The world of self-service is experiencing the same breaking down of silos. You probably have a fairly clear picture in your mind of what a kiosk is, what an ATM is (both the ticketing and bank teller varieties), and what a vending machine is. A kiosk is a touchscreen-operated console used to scan and pay for your shopping, order fast food, book in for an appointment or confirm your identity. An ATM is a machine that dispenses cash and tickets, of the transport, event and parking variety. A vending machine dispenses drinks and snacks.
However, it’s no longer always entirely clear where we draw the lines between these self-service devices. These days, you’re just as likely to find a touchscreen on a ticket machine or a console that sells crisps and coffee. Does that make it a kiosk? Does it matter?
In truth, not really. A name is just a name. Rather than getting hung up on labels and definitions, what’s really interesting about these machines is what they do – and a particularly interesting trend at present is the functional convergence we’re seeing across all types of self-service hardware.
The kioskification of self-service
By this point, tech hardware development is far down the path of multifunctionality (think of the smartphone example again). Why choose a device that does one specialist job when you can have a versatile console that does 10?
So rather than just dispensing cash, many modern bank ATMs provide access to a full range of banking services. Vending machines are not just popping out cans of pop. They’re making hot food to order, taking a step into QSR territory. And the growing field of automated retail can be likened to large-scale vending machines with a kiosk-like (i.e. touchscreen) interface that allows customers to browse and look up product information as well as choose and pay.
You might call this the ‘kioskification’ of more specialised self-service formats. Kiosks have always been multifunctional by design. Touchscreen interfaces have a lot to do with it. Put a touchscreen, a CPU and a network connection on a machine and voila, you have a device capable of everything a smartphone or computer is capable of. With these modifications, once-specialised machines can perform functions way beyond what they were originally intended for, from transport ticket machines that now allow travellers to look up live journey information and make bookings at their destination, to EV charging stations that allow drivers to pre-pay for purchases in the forecourt while they wait.
We don’t need to stop calling a machine that dispenses food a vending machine. Or one that allows you to take out cash an ATM. Nor do we need to get caught up about whether we call it kioskification or anything else. What matters is that self-service technology is pooling its resources to allow us to do more and more. Long may that continue, we say.
