Comments on: How to Build a Web-Based Kiosk

By: Nicolas Dujovne

Nicolas Dujovne — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 21:10:07 +0000

Great post Ryan!

I need to do the same thing (without the payment) and was just wondering if i had to do it in C# or migrate our just PHP code to a touch interface.

Thanks a lot from Chile!

By: Damiri

Damiri — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 07:11:45 +0000

Thanks alot for this valuable article.
I have the exact project, but I faced some problems in printing using a web application so I had to host my web on the Kiosk machine itself “locally” which is not efficient of course.

Could you please help me and tell me about the Active X control that you utilized it with sitekiosk 6 inorder to send the print job directly to the client’s “kiosk’s” printer without user interaction ? how did you do it ? I would highly appreciate sending some code snippets on my email alaa_damiri@hotmail.com

Thanks alot again,
Damiri

By: Ryan Stemkoski

Ryan Stemkoski — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 23:37:34 +0000

@Susanta You can easily use this methodology to create the type of kiosk your client is requesting assuming that your kiosk has internet access to interact with the remote system. This example was developed using PHP but basically does the exact same type of interaction.

By: Susanta Jana

Susanta Jana — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:37:19 +0000

One of my client(one factory with 1000 employee) want to do the leave application by the worker through KIOSK system. But all the leave related information is available in a web based application. Worker just apply the leave throug KIOSK and this leave will be transfered to the existing web based application for all other process (like wages calculation).Please anybody let me know , if the same web based application (.Net 2.0)can be displayed in the KIOSK system, will it work properly or will this be user friendly? Or any other application should be used with the same back end.

By: Richard

Richard — Wed, 18 May 2011 01:32:14 +0000

Hi Sir,
Thanks for the information you’ve given.I would just like to ask if you have ever done a web-based kiosk with some sort of a directory/map function within it? My friends and I were planning to integrate a sort “of directory/store finder” in our web-based shopping mall kiosk for our thesis. We planned it to be just how google maps work except for the use of GPS. Since it is our first time,our problem now in on what tools/software we must use upon designing such mall-map function. We currently use PHp,MySQL,Adobe Dreamweaver and Fireworks, and Joomla as tools for our project. If ever you have an idea sir, can you share to us possible software where we can develop our map function?Thank you very much.

Richard

By: Satyender

Satyender — Mon, 16 May 2011 06:05:08 +0000

Hi Ryan,

Thanks for the info.

By: Ryan Stemkoski

Ryan Stemkoski — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 15:40:42 +0000

@Richard, It doesn’t seem like that would be a problem. You could host your kiosk application on a 3rd party web accessible server and make it publicly available so users with internet enabled mobile devices could access it as well. We have done many projects that function like this. You can even render a separate version of your applications specifically targeted at smart phone devices allowing users in the mall to use the directory in an app like fashion.

If you go this route this article I wrote should help you get started:

http://www.stemkoski.com/how-to-design-websites-for-mobile-phones/

Essentially, you would turn the directory application into a website and make it available to the public and/or restrict access to multiple devices depending on security needs. You could use the approach outlined in this article to render the application to any user with an internet connection. You may also check out:

http://www.ziplineinteractive.com/kiosks-interactive-environment

If you would like to see an example kiosk my company created that functions just as described.

By: Richard

Richard — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 05:16:01 +0000

Hello Sir,
I’m interested with this article of yours because it gave me an idea for our project. I’m just thinking if it is possible of creating for example a directory kiosk for malls that can be accessed in 2 ways, first, by using the kiosk machines that we will implement in certain locations within the mall, then second, by just using a wifi enabled device to access the kiosk software itself. Our problem actually is on the 2nd part.

Can you give us possible ideas on how to implement a kiosk that can be access also by wifi-enabled machines?Thanks sir..

Richard

By: Yves Mailhot

Yves Mailhot — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 21:08:32 +0000

Hi, some years ago I wrote a kiosk application called Netstop – it still exist but I sold the business. I wrote a new one this time for Mac called eCrisper. Mac computers are really the way to go for kiosks.

Yves

By: Ryan Stemkoski

Ryan Stemkoski — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:10:31 +0000

Thanks for the comment on my How to Build a Web Based Kiosk blog posting. In our case, we purchased a kiosk machine from a company called Phoenix Kiosk. The Kiosk was shipped with a touch screen monitor. The touch screen monitor basically acts as a mouse so you don’t have to do anything programmatically to make the touch screen work you just have to buy the proper equipment.

The SiteKiosk program handled all of the operating system modification. It made sure users could only use the web browser, it handled refreshing the kiosk, it handled screen saver timing, it handled session refreshing.
Basically, with the strategy I outlined in my post, assuming you purchase the proper equipment you don’t really have to do anything special. Like us, you may find you have to make minor modifications to the design and programming to function as expected but basically with all of the outlined equipment you are just building a normal website. It may appear differently but the underlying technologies are the same. If desired it could easily all be done in plain HTML if you didn’t require any database interaction.