Paper Plus Book Finder Kiosks

Greatly challenging both in terms of interface and functionality, the Paper Plus BookFinder kiosk was a project we approached with relish. The brief was to provide a kiosk which would allow customers to search for a book, check if it is in stock at the store, view the current price, read a detailed description and get a print-out of the particulars of a book or a search.

Working with AdvanceRetail Technology, New Zealand's leading POS software vendor and Paper Plus' supplier, we built a backend that integrates into the existing the Paper Plus POS system, checking for price and stock status in real time and displaying this information on-screen.

The kiosk uses a subset of the Nielsen BookData database that is pertinent to New Zealand and receives overnight updates to the database via FTP to keep it current. The search engine uses an open source text search product called Lucene.net which indexes over 990,000 books every day. The search provides instant results as you type, searching the title, author, subject and ISBN number fields, automatically performing word-stemming and widening the search* when necessary. Book details displayed include cover art, jacket notes, edition and publisher.

We designed the interface for a 17" screen to give plenty of room for keyboards and book information displays. The interface is a seamless search tool. The keyboard, scrollers, filter buttons, and results displays are gathered in easily accessible panels which slide smoothly on and off screen as necessary.grb-pplus02-big

Text is entered using a visually-responsive on-screen keyboard. The instant feedback the user receives is key to making what could be a complex interface very intuitive - the user understands exactly what the kiosk is doing from the first touch.

A print-out of search results or book details can be generated at any time. This print-out includes the unique barcode for the book which is particularly useful for placing advance orders for a book that is not in stock. Customers take the print-out to the counter and the barcode is scanned to place an order.