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dScope
Photographic Kiosk Details |
| The dScope Kiosk Solution is a fully functional kiosk designed from the ground up to address some of the problems that were found in the existing solutions available on the market. The solution consists of three applications.... The Retail Kiosk is a program that will run on any PC ranging from expensive kiosk hardware with touch screens through to existing computers that you may already have within your business. It will turn that hardware into a high end kiosk that customers can use to simply order prints from their digital images or to build complex imaging products like PhotoBooks, Calendars, Digital ScrapBooking, image based gifting, mosaics, textured images etc etc etc.. The Home Kiosk is a program that looks and feels exactly the same as the Retail Kiosk, except it is designed to run on the customers own home computer. Despite being a substantially different program to the Retail Kiosk, it is designed to look and work exactly the same so that customers believe they are using the same program at home as they used in the shop. The Kiosk Manager is the link between your shop and the Home Kiosks. It receives and submits all the orders placed through the Home Kiosks, and also manages all those Home Kiosks from a single point. It allows you to update systems, products and pricing on every Home Kiosk installed by your customers, even if you do not know where that customer might be. There are a number of kiosk solutions available that have similar style and capabilities. The dScope approach has been different to most of these solutions so this page will highlight the differences between the dScope kiosk and others on the market. You can look through all the advantages of the dScope system by reading through the whole page, or you can jump to any of the specific advantages by clicking on this list:
If you have any questions about the existing functionality, or would like to suggest any special functions you would like to see on a kiosk, please contact us here. To see the pricing structure for the dScope Photographic Kiosk solution, please click here. If you would like to see samples of some of the interesting products your customers could build using the kiosk, click here. |
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Most kiosk solutions available are branded by the developer. You are using a HP kiosk, or a Whitech kiosk and the customer will see the same kiosk in many different locations. This drives the price of the products down dramatically. If the customer sees exactly the same service available in many places, they will simply go to the place that offers the lowest price. The dScope Kiosk is fully brandable. The operator has the capability to manage the look of the Kiosk and to brand it to match their own business. The result is 'Your' kiosk that the customer cannot see anywhere else. You can also create your own product set within the kiosk rather than having a limited range of products to choose from. You can offer products and services on the kiosk that further differentiate your business. |
| Matching Home And Retail System When customers use a particular system, they become familiar and comfortable with it. If they are confronted with something different they will usually become uncomfortable and will shy away from using it. This is especially true when the customer is in a position where there is no immediate help available to them. The dScope Home Kiosk looks and works the same as the Retail Kiosk. The customer believes they are using exactly the same program at home as the one they used in the shop. This means that any time you spend on training the customer is fully applicable to the home system as well as the retail system, and things they learn at home can be applied to the system they use in your shop. When any customer uses the Kiosk in the shop, the operator can simply hand them a disk which will allow them to "install the same system on their computer at home". |
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sample PhotoBook page built in the kiosk. Click on the image for a larger
version, or click here to see the samples
page. |
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The most difficult component of running a Home Kiosk setup is finding ways to get the program out and installed with as many prospective customers as possible. It is easy to hand the program to all your existing customers, but it is more important to get the system out to a new range of customers. Within the dScope Home Kiosk Solution there is a built in 'Partnership Plan' which helps the operator get the program out to a wide audience of prospective customers. The operator can target any organisation and present the option of that organisation becoming a 'Partner'. These organisations might be schools, social clubs, sporting groups or any other group. The partner organisation hands the kiosk program out to all their members or associates and in return they gat a small percentage of the price of any order made on those kiosks. The Partner has the opportunity to offer a service to their members, and then gets a monthly payment for any orders placed. The operator gets a much wider customer base. The difficulty with such an arrangement is accounting for the orders and the payments. In this case the Kiosk Manager does all this accounting automatically. You can run a report off the Kiosk Manager covering any period of your choice and it will show you how many orders have been placed that are linked to each partner, the amount of those orders and the amount owing to each partner. This Partnership Plan is also Multi-level. Existing partners can increase the amount they receive for the partnership by placing the operator in contact with other groups who may want to join in. For example, you may offer the local football club 3% of all orders placed on their kiosks. If that football club then puts you in contact with the basketball club then the basketball club could also get 3% of the orders coming from their members, and the original football club get 1% as well. The percentage offered to each partner at every level is fully configurable and may be different for different partners. This system is designed to get your Home Kiosk out to as many potential customers as possible. Your partner organisations have incentive to promote the system to their members and to help you disseminate the system to an even wider audience. |
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Using the loading process described above also lets the customer load images from multiple storage devices into the same working set. This is particularly when building PhotoBooks, Digital ScrapBooking pages or calendars. If the customer has some images on a CD, some on a card, some on a USB stick, and some that need to be scanned, all these images can be imported into the same kiosk session and then used together to build the required product. |
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There is a range of new paper surfaces becoming available on the market, especially as the new dry lab printers proliferate. As these new paper surfaces become available it is important that you can offer them to customers quickly and efficiently. You do not want to wait six months for your kiosk provider to update their product and then pay for a new version. In dScope you can create new paper types at any time and they will become available on the system immediately. There is no limit to the number of 'print types' you can offer, and old print types can easily be removed from the system if they are no longer required. These paper types do not have to be available on your standard printer. This means you can offer products like canvas and material prints directly through the kiosk. You can also set up which print sizes are available for each of these print types. Some print types will only be available on smaller print sizes, some will be available only on large print sizes, and some will be available on all print sizes |
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sample Calendar page built in the kiosk. Click on the image for a larger
version, or click here to see the samples
page. |
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Most kiosks will only allow you to offer print sizes that can be printed on their printers. The dScope Kiosk will allow you to offer any print size through the kiosk. The list of prints sizes is fully under the control of the operator and can be modified at any time. You can also control exactly which print types are available at every print size. |
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Most of the existing kiosk solutions are linked to a particular print solution. If you decide to change your print solution you will often find that you will be required to change your kiosk solution as well. This comes at a very high price. Firstly there is the cost of the new equipment, but more costly is the affect of this change on your customer base. Many customers are lost because they are comfortable with a particular system, and will choose to go to another site where that solution is available to them. Those customers who stay with you will need to be trained and transitioned to the new system with very high staffing and time costs. dScope is printer independent. The system can work with all the major printer solutions available. If you change print solutions you can retain your existing kiosk solution and save all the costs and problems associated with a kiosk system change. With the new range of dry labs coming into the market, this factor is becoming much more important, the printers are less expensive and designed to be a more short term solution. These new printers will develop very quickly and new models with better production and more capability will be coming regularly. Using the dScope Kiosk solution gives you the freedom to choose the best printing option without having to consider the kiosk issues related to the change. |
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One of the most difficult parts of running a series of kiosks is training the customers on those systems. While basic capabilities can be made very intuitive, the extended products such as Digital ScrapBooking, PhotoBooks, Montages, calendars etc will generally require you to provide some level of help and training to the customer. This support is very costly in time and staff costs. The dScope Kiosk has a wide range of training videos built in to the kiosk system. The customer can see a list of these training videos at any time while using the kiosk, and can run these videos from within the system. Similarly, a staff member can initiate the video for the customer and then support others while that video is running. Importantly, these same videos are available to the home user via the web. When a customer selects the help option on a dScope Home Kiosk they will see the same list of videos and they can watch the videos on their own computer via the internet. |
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A
sample Framed Image built in the kiosk. Click on the image for a larger
version, or click here to see the samples
page. |
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While customers know of products such as PhotoBooks, Montages and Calendars, research showed that the same customers were not creating these types of products as much as estimated. Discussions with operators and customers revealed that customers wanted to build these products, but could not put together a number of related images over a period of time. Digital images were all together on a very large storage device where it was too hard to find the ones they wanted, or they had been copied onto a computer and the customer could not find them or manipulate them on that computer. To overcome this, dScope has created the 'dScope Library' application. This is a small program that can be copied onto any storage device and will immediately convert that device into an image library. The customer can easily create libraries and put images into those libraries, then manage those images within those libraries. They can create and name as many libraries as they wish, and those libraries can contain small or large numbers of images. When a 'dScope Library' device is inserted into either a Retail or Home Kiosk, the system will recognise the device as a dScope library and ask the customer “What library would you like to load”. Al the images in that library are then loaded and made ready for use in the PhotoBook, Montage, Calendar or other multi-image products. The dScope Library application can be configured to operate in one of three modes.
Based on the business plan and the particular mode the operator chooses to run, they can decide to give the dScope Library program away, charge a fee for it, or distribute it on branded storage devices. |
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There are often problems when customers see the full image on their screen, order prints on that image and then find that the whole of the image they saw on the screen was not included in the print due to aspect ratio differences. The main screens in dScope are fully WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). The version of the image shown on the screen is already cropped to the selected printing size. If the customer places an order they will get a product that exactly matches what they saw on the screen. They can change the zooming and crop on any image if they choose to do so, and they can set a completely different zoom and crop on the image at every different print size. The zoom and crop is one of many image manipulation options available to the customers by double clicking any image on the main screen. Which ones are available at any time is dependent on the user access levels set in the kiosk, and the user level of the current customer. The options include a wide range of colour manipulations, red eye removal, borders, text etc.. At the highest levels you may even give the customer the capability to open their image in an external editor such as Photoshop. |
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A
sample Montage built in the kiosk. Click on the image for a larger version,
or click here to see the samples page. |
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The Retail Kiosks can be connected to a “master machine” where specialised Bureau Services can be provided at an agreed cost. Common examples of this include colour correction and expert Photoshop modifications. The customer can request this service while in the middle of their order. The operator will go to the Master machine and 'take over' the customer kiosk. The kiosk screen will go blank while the operator performs the desired service. The costs for these services are added to the customer order and fully itemised on their order documentation |
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Every function on the kiosk can have a user level assigned to it. This allows you to control which customers have access to which functions within the kiosk. New, inexperienced customer will see a basic set op options that will allow them to work easily and quickly with the kiosk without being confused by too many options. More experienced customer will see many more options and will be able to work with the more complex functionality within the kiosk. This minimises the level of support you need to provide for kiosk users, and service calls from Home Kiosk users. It also allows you to better manage your resources within your retail environment. You are able to choose when you train customers in the more complex functionality of the system. If you have a full shop or low staff levels, the customers on the kiosk can work at their existing user levels. If you have free staff available, those staff can be utilised working with customers, moving them to a higher user level and helping them utilise more features within the kiosk. Once a customer has been trained on these new functions, they will be able to access them any time in the future by entering the password for that user level. These user levels are also active on the Home Kiosk system. Customers who have access to higher user levels will be able to use their user level password to access those extra functions on the Home Kiosk as well. The added advantage of this system is the promotable concept of ongoing training and learning of new skills. Customers like the feeling that they are developing and improving and will come back for the chance to move up to a new level. |
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When the customer uses a Home Kiosk to manipulate their images, in most cases those images need to be stored on the customer's computer before they can be sent for printing. Users that have a small amount of technical knowledge can easily find these files on the computer and copy them to any storage device, and once saved they can simply use the files of their computer or take them to any cut price printer. This is a major problem when it comes to high return creative products like PhotoBooks, Calendars etc.. After copying, these products can simply be printed as simple images removing all the operator's profit margins or all income completely. dScope must save these files like all systems, but it does so in a proprietary format that can only be opened in a dScope system. When the customer finds the files and copies them, they will find they cannot open them. These special files are maintained in the proprietary format until they are submitted for printing. The Kiosk Manager then converts the files back into image files ready for printing. This process assures that, once an image is modified in any way, that modified image is the property of the operator. The customer cannot do anything with that modified image without the operator. This image ownership is a key component of the dScope systems that protects the operator from fraud and abuse. |
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A
sample Mosaic Image built in the kiosk. Click on the image for a larger
version, or click here to see the samples
page. |
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The dScope Kiosk can be installed on any Windows based hardware. There are minimum hardware specifications suggested to assure that the customer experience is maintained, but no specialised equipment is required. If you wish to use the expensive upright kiosk equipment with the built in touch screens, then dScope Kiosk can be installed on the hardware. At the other end of the scale, the kiosk can be installed on a five year old PC that you have already within your business and pay no hardware costs at all. Every time the kiosk is started, it will assess the hardware it is running on, and the size and resolution of the available screen. The system will then automatically adjust itself to provide the best possible customer experience given the hardware available. For example, the system will adjust the number of images shown on the screen at any one time to assure the images are large enough for the customer to assess and work with. It will also limit the number of items that customer can place onto any book page, or the number of images in a collage according to the amount of memory installed in the hardware. These adjustments are even more important when it comes to the Home Kiosk. In the home environment the business operator has no knowledge of the hardware the system will be installed on, or even if that installation is taking place. Having a system that will adjust itself to the users hardware means that the operator does not need to know about the installation and will not get repeated support calls from customers trying to install the application on hardware that will not be capable of running it. If you are looking to price hardware that will run dScope well and provide a good customer experience we suggest you go to the Dell website and look at the price of their most basic PC that is running a full processor (not celeron). Any machine similar to that specification will operate well with dScope and provide a good customer experience. Whilst better hardware will produce a better customer experience, dScope does not require the operator to purchase any specialist kiosk hardware. We continually test the system on lower specification machines, older versions of the operating system and smaller screens. |
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A major problem with giving customers access to the kiosks in the retail environment is that it gives customers access to that computer, and through that computer, access to you whole business network. If the customer is malicious, this means they can do either minor damage to your systems, or wholesale damage to your networks. There are cases where malicious customers have simply deleted all the software on the network server, requiring the whole network to be rebuilt and the printer reinstalled from the ground up. This can easily cost tens of thousands of dollars. Some kiosk solutions have very rudimentary hardware protection and can be defeated by something as simple as pressing the Ctrl-Alt-Del button if there is a keyboard, or using similar windows functions on a touch screen. It is also very easy to insert a card with virus or other malicious software into the card slot on the computer and using that to either damage the system or gain access to the network. dScope has a very high level of hardware protection and has passed all testing from even highly technically skilled users. Once the kiosk program is running, you can feel safe that even malicious users will not be able to gain access to your systems. This protection is even active when the user has access to a keyboard and mouse. The protection system includes protection from autorun applications and blocking of the Windows autoplay feature. This prevents virus from transferring from customer devices but still allows customers to load images from devices (including CD’s) with autorun programs on them. The protection will also prevent autoloading software from installing on the kiosk. Customers will regularly have storage devices where the images have been copied through external programs such as HP Imaging sorftware, U3 etc.. These systems copy a set of install files onto the device with the images and will install themselves on the next machine automatically. dScope will prevent any such software from installing itself off customer devices. |
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As above, the dScope application can be run on any PC within the minimum specification limits. Hardware that is specifically designed and built for use as a kiosk are regularly very expensive and run extremely low specification hardware. As a result the system is very slow and the screen is very bad. Together this produces an extremely bad customer experience. There are cheaper kiosk hardware options available on the market, but these are usually built around second hand computer chips and even lower specifications. The dscope application can make a kiosk out of non specialise hardware that you can buy very cheaply or you can use existing hardware to create your kiosk capability without any extra hardware costs. Even if you do decide to purchase new hardware for your kiosk, you can buy basic configuration machines and still produce a very good customer experience. Using the Dell website as an example, you can currently buy a machine that will work very well as a kiosk for around $AU 800, or $US 500. |
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When attempting to get your Home Kiosk out to a wide user base, the size of the download program is of vital importance. The installation files for most home kiosk solutions range form 30 to 70 Meg. This is large enough to deter most customers from downloading the files. The only way you will be able to reliably distribute the system will be by handing out installation disks, which restricts you to customers you already have contact with. A full set of installation files for the dScope Home Kiosk can be downloaded in approximately 5MB. Most customers on standard ADSL connections can download it less than 30 seconds. This overcomes a major barrier to customer uptake. A single set of installation files can be used to install the kiosk on many computers so customers can freely pass the system on to friends and families. The size of the installation file means that the software installation files can be handed out on almost any type of storage device, and it could even be distributed in mass emails! |
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A
sample Calendar page built in the kiosk. Click on the image for a larger
version, or click here to see the samples
page. |
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When it comes time to send their order there are many cases where the customer aborts their orders when they see a message saying that it will take anything up to 24 hours to upload their order. A simple ten page PhotoBook in some kiosk applications can be as much as 200 MB, and as upload speeds are usually about one third of download speeds, this can take hours to send on its own. dScope has many ways to minimise the amount of data that needs to be uploaded to fulfil an order. Image sizing, loss free compression and order optimisation techniques are all used. On average the amount of data required to upload a ten page PhotoBook in dScope will be between 20 and 30 MB, up to ten times less than other systems. |
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The system can be set up to offer an 'Upgrade My Order' option at the end of the order process. The upgrade size and the pricing for that upgrade size can be set up by the operator. The size can be one of the existing print sizes and the pricing is independent of the rest of the kiosk sizes and prices. For example, you may have 8X6 for $3.00 in the kiosk and then setp 8X6 as the upgrade size with a price of $2.00. When the customer gets to the end of the order they will see a comparison between the 6X4 size and the upgrade size with the question "Would you like to upgrade all your 6X4 prints for $XX.XX?". If they select to upgrade, all their 6X4 prints will be upgraded to this new size and their invoice adjusted accordingly. |
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The system supports a full discount coupons process. Coupons can be created to offer any level of discount on any product. The flexibility of the system will allow for both complex and simple discount offers ranging from “10% off all prints” through to “buy three 8X10 Canvasses, get one free”. Each coupon has a number associated with it and the customer must have that number to take advantage of the Coupon. The same coupons can be used on the Home Kiosk, and you can control the usage by assuring that the coupon can only be used once on any Home Kiosk. |
| Auto Book Builder With Edit Option Being faced with a large number of images and a collection of blank pages can be daunting for a customer starting a PhotoBook. There are also some customers who would rather have someone else do the basic design work for them. These customers have the option of using the Auto Book Builder. They can choose the images they want included in the book, the order they want those images used, then which images they want on each page, and some basic options such as backgrounds and effects. The Auto Book Builder will then go ahead and build the complete book for them. The Auto Book Builder is not template based, so there is no repetition of the same design on multiple pages. The most important feature of the Auto Book Builder is that the product that is build is fully editable. Every page built in the Auto Book Builder can be adjusted and edited by the customer. This gives the customer the chance to personalise the product and develop that sense of ownership that increases the orders. |
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| A sample PhotoBook page built in the kiosk. Click on the image for a larger version, or click here to see the samples page. |
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The Kiosk system has the capability to support ordering. The customer can select the images they want included in the video, select some configuration settings like the amount of time they want each image shown for and the length of the transitions. They also have the option of setting the image order within the video. Video ordering is also available through the Home Kiosk. |
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Gifting is a very fluid area of the imaging industry as new gifting products are being developed and offered on a regular basis. When new gifting items become available you can immediately include them in the offerings through the kiosk. There is no limit to the number of gift items you can offer and the items offered are completely under the control of the operator. The difficulty with gifting is usually the aspect ratio of the image required and the production process neccesary. When you create a gifting item in dScope you provide the system with the exact size of the image that will be required. This is used at the time of the order to allow the customer to view and crop their image exactly as they want it to appear in the gift item. If that gift item requires prints to be created, then this can also be set in the gift details and the kiosk will automatically produce the print(s) required for you to build that item. |
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When customers place very large orders you can find that your printer will be tied up for long periods of time printing a single job. This becomes a problem when you want to offer a highly priced express order option, or you have a customer requiring product in a hurry. With dScope you can set the system to split large orders into a series of smaller jobs. You can then schedule other high priority work in between those jobs. |
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You can set up a “Sharing Folder” across any group of dScope Kiosks that is accessible to all those kiosks. Customers then have the option to copy images into that Shared Folder so that other customers can import them and use them in their products. This promotes the social aspect of customers coming to your retail premises and allows you to organise 'group nights' where you can invite groups of people to come in, be trained on the systems and to build specialised products. the operator can also use this shared folder as an easy way to pass images to customers who are currently working on the kiosks. |
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With the wide range of print options available it is important to be able to utilise the best print solution for the particular products. This is particularly true for multi-page products such as books, and calendars. In dScope you can set these products to be output as either PDF files or JPG files. This opens the option to use a much wider range of print options such as the digital press. The PDF output option also allows you to take advantage of outsourced printing options as the PDF format is very widely accepted by print solution providers. |
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Express Order Option Without Losing Upsell Options Adding an Express Print option to a kiosk is often counter productive. Customers seeing this option will often select it out of habit or in the belief that it will be easier to use. Once the customer has selected this option the operator loses the opportunity to sell other products because they are no longer available. Even when the customer asks about other products, the operator cannot demonstrate and sell these other products because the order is already underway in 'Express Mode'. In dScope there is an express mode that takes the customer through a faster and more direct order process, but at any stage the customer can move back and forth between that express mode and the normal full order process. If a customer starts an order in express mode and then enquires about other services, they can move out of 'Express Mode' in the middle of the order process and all the upsell options will become immediately available. |
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| A sample Calendar page built in the kiosk. Click on the image for a larger version, or click here to see the samples page. |
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The Kiosks have the option for three levels of pricing on all products. This allows for different pricing structures for VIPs, pro customers etc.. The pricing structure to use for any customer can be set automatically if you are using the 'Customer Database' option, or manually by the operator during the order process. |
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You can create a “Special Offers” print that promotes the business or a product and set the system to automatically add this print to any order that meets a certain criteria. For example, if a customer orders over 100 prints the “Special Offer” print is added to the order which is for a free enlargement on their next visit. Alternatively it could be a branding or promotional advert included in any order. |
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The system can be configured to print an Order Identification Print at the end of each order sent to the printer. This print includes all the order and customer details for that order. This removes the requirement for a ‘running sheet’ and is very useful when submitting multiple orders in a single process. |
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You can set up Output Adjustments on every retail kiosk separately to allow for the differences in the displays used on those kiosks. This allows the process to match the print colour to that the customer sees on the screen for every kiosk. Different output adjustments can be created for different print types where colour representation may vary on different papers or print devices. |
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You can connect a scanner to any dScope Retail Kiosk and then allow customers to scan their own images into the system. In the system settings you can decide if this activity attracts a charge, and if so, how much. This allows you to charge for this service and to provide the service without any staff or other costs involved. |
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There are multiple formats for the order details printed whenever the customer submits an order. Some formats are designed for the customer and some for the operator. Whenever an order is submitted the system can print two of these reports and they can be on the same or different printers. For example an order slip printed at the kiosk for the customer and a full order report printed behind the counter to use as a running sheet. |
| Access to Social Networking Pages It is becoming common for customers to store images in their social networking websites (eg. facebook), or in specialised storage sites on the web (eg. PhotoBucket). The kiosk can be set up to allow customers to retrieve these images from the website and then import them into the kiosk for inclusion in their products. The problem with most systems that allow this access is that the operator has no control over what the user does on the internet. Once the customer has been given access to the internet, there is no way of restricting where they go, what they access, and what they might download to the machine. To protect you from these issues, the web access component in the dScope Kiosk can be passworded so that customers cannot access the web without the knowledge and oversight of the operator. |
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A
sample Montage built in the kiosk. Click on the image for a larger version,
or click here to see the samples page. |
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Linking to the Point Of Sale system is an important time saving component of any sales system. This becomes difficult when there is no knowledge of which point of sale system is used and there is no standard format that could be used for all POS systems. To get around this, dScope allows you to have all the product codes and prices on the reports represented as a barcode as well as text. This means you can quickly scan the product and transaction details into any Point Of Sale system. |
