Interactive Kiosk Example
I loved the Sennheiser interactive kiosk project for a bunch of reasons. Personally, I had a strong affinity with the brand; Sennheiser is the preferred headphones of many DJ’s. But more importantly, from inception to execution the project just made sense. The ear and headphone market has blown up in tandem with smart devices and is now worth ten billion US dollars. Thanks Dr Dre! With the launch of the PXC550, Sennheiser were looking to target an affluent audience at Australian and New Zealand airports.
Sennheiser PXC550
The PXC 550 is a wireless noise cancelling headphone with exceptional sound quality. When it first launched, it was $700 for a pair. We worked with industrial designers on producing a cabinet that is robust, functional and aesthetically reflects the brand. Its differentiated from the usual headphone test rig, the technology exceptionally reliable.
Addressing the problem
Prior to starting the project, feedback we received was that often the test headphones in retail stores don’t work and there is no easy way to know whether they are . This kiosk we designed resolved those issues. The Reliable media player, reinforced cabling and remote management are key to its success. Componentry including the media player and 4g connection are concealed and the cabinet sufficiently ventilated. We commissioned the design of a custom audio splitter so that customers had the choice off plugging in their own device or listening to music from the experience. The splitter triggers a priority override when the user plugs in their phone to the auxiliary cable.
The Interactive Kiosk
Like any of our experiences, we went through a briefing process, produced design options, recommended voice talent and a sound track then progressed to storyboarding the experience.
The attractor screen is a contemporary parallax design; it has depth and motion that draws the customer to the kiosk and the voice over repeats the tagline. The first scene is an animation demonstrating how to turn the audio down. From here the user has a two options – explore the features or assess the sound quality. A simple rotating carousel allows the user to review key features of the headphones.
3D Animation
My favourite content piece is the way in which we demonstrate the Extended battery life. We worked out that you could fly to Sennheiser’s head office in Germany from Sydney with a couple of stop overs on a single charge. So we created a 3D animation depicting the flight. We commissioned a 3D expert with aviation expertise to create the piece and Beau Galland did a great job. There is some fun music-centric trivia along the way. The audio production includes some cabin relevant sound effects that highlight the audio quality of the headphones and keep the customer engaged.
Audio Production
Here’s A fun fact. James freeman who did the audio engineering for this project is a legend of production in the Australian music industry working with the likes of The Black Keys, Olivia Newton John, Jimmy Barnes, Diesel and Ian Moss.
For assessing sound quality, the users are given a selection of music to suit their tastes. Another fun fact. All the songs here are royalty free music, with the exception of the Pop Song. We had to get clearance for that and it came with some warm and fuzzies. Sydnee Carter’s dad had heard her song play in a Good Guys store, a customer we do the background music for, and he wanted to thank the music programming department. So we got in touch and asked if Sydnee would be interested in promoting her music via the Sennheiser kiosk. The rest is history.
The other important element of this experience is the analytics. Not only do we remotely manage the kiosk which has assured 100% uptime we produce reports on performance. And this experience delivers. Average engagement time of 3 ½ minutes and 30 users per day over 10 kiosks. Further insights are gained about feature and music preferences.
The only thing I would do differently is facial detection, so we can quantify effectiveness of the attractor screen and gather demographic data too.
This kiosk was built using Intuiface interactive kiosk software. The company dominates the interactive kiosk market. Habitat Digital uses Intuiface for many of its kiosk deployments
If you need help with your Interactive project, get in touch.
