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How to Create a DIY Kiosk on the Cheap For Your Small Business

As a small business owner you recognize the value of self-service because it allows you to serve more customers with minimal staffing overhead.

In this article I’m going to give you the components to piece together a very economical do-it-yourself kiosk for your small business or startup for under $1000.

This example will cover a single DIY kiosk deployment, but could certainly be scaled to support a handful of kiosks.

Cheap kiosk for small business

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What is Kiosk Software?

Kiosk software running on a kioskKiosk software is a security application specifically designed to transform a PC or tablet into a self-service kiosk.  The kiosk software is also responsible for locking down your kiosks operating system to prevent malicious user tampering, which is why kiosk software is often referred to as “kiosk lockdown software.”

Some common features of kiosk software include:

Ensures that your kiosk application is always running

In most cases the kiosk operator will desire to deliver their content in the form of a website or native application running on their kiosk.  An example of a native application for a kiosk running Microsoft Windows would be a .NET WPF application.  For the sake of brevity, for the remainder of this article I’m going to refer to the website or native application running on your kiosk as “your kiosk application.”

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How to Disable Internet Explorer Pinch-Zoom on Your Touchscreen Kiosk

Disable pinch-zoom on your Windows web browser kioskIf your Windows touchscreen kiosk is using the Internet Explorer WebBrowser Control you might want to consider disabling the user’s ability to “pinch-zoom” since it can cause readability issues.  Pinch-zoom can be a useful feature, especially when interacting with the web browser, but it can also cause confusion in a touchscreen kiosk environment since not all users are familiar with the pinch-zoom functionality.  Imagine the scenario where one user zooms in on the webpage and walks away, then the next user has no idea how to zoom back out to 100%.  Fortunately it’s easy to disable pinch-zoom in the Internet Explorer WebBrowser Control from the Windows registry and I’ll outline the steps below. Continue reading “How to Disable Internet Explorer Pinch-Zoom on Your Touchscreen Kiosk”

If You’re Not Considering Tablet Kiosks, You’ll Hate Yourself Later

decoration_windows_tablet_chassisTablet kiosks are becoming an increasing popular economic alternative to traditional standing kiosks.  They offer many advantages, chief of which is their affordability, but they also have several limitations which are worth considering.  My goal for this article is to help you decide if a tablet kiosk is a better fit for your kiosk project than a standard kiosk. Continue reading “If You’re Not Considering Tablet Kiosks, You’ll Hate Yourself Later”