Haptics in Kiosks and ATMs for the Disabled

Current information kiosks and ATMs are designed to facilitate users by providing a single modal interaction approach. They are generally accessed and operated via a small touch screen and a basic numberpad. Considering that most Information kiosks and ATMs are located in conjested and low lit areas, it becomes a usability challenge for users to operate such machines. As such kiosks become more and more complex and multifaceted their usability begins to fall considerably, even for experienced users. In this situation we see that disabled users, who often require the services of such kiosks the most, are facing serious accessability issues which limit, and in some cases outrite restrict the usage of such machines. For much of this evalution of IKs and ATMs, the disabled users accessability and usability concerns have gone unheard, giving raise to a technology bias and hence the current form of such machines, where touch screen are quickly replacing all mechanical buttons and keypads The impact of this evalution has left scaring effects for most disabled users. This research aims to understand the gap created by the advancements in IKs and ATMs, and provide a working design using a multimodal approach to bridge this gap. The reseach also tries to explore some of the on going efforts to design and implement IKs and ATMs for the disabled as well as some commercial products which have surfaced to facilitate the target users. Asiasanat:Haptics, HCI, HU