Advances in collaborative technologies in mediating cooperation situations now provide quite natural face-to-face (F2F) interaction with negotiation, information, and manipulation facilities via video-mediated communication (VMC). In measuring F2F situations, research has defined the boundaries and challenges of VMC for collaborative activities. In the context of service kiosks VMC devices have remained untapped though a basic model, design principles and certain ideas on what kind of cooperation it may be useful are given. Our case study on a new car rental service solution shows how a VMC kiosk involves cooperative partners, for what purposes they require VMC, and in what ways other kiosk devices are more appropriate. We show how these purposes unite the kiosk and VMC devices and, by measuring the kiosk use in a public place, provide our analysis aspects and remote service kiosk solutions for collaborative kiosk and service design

Self-service is seen as effective, and thus, pervasive in all walks of human life, where crowds of people independently use public or private services offered by local kiosks, the Internet, or mobile devices. There is growing interest in delivering complex information-intensive interactive services via kiosks. This complicated service design, along with multiple choice interfaces, has diversified customer groups and situations where people are dependent on available kiosks. This work introduces a new video-mediated communication (VMC) based kiosk system, which is a functional solution for the problem. This kiosk can be staffed remotely using VMC and service personnel working over the Internet to personally serve each customer and facilitate the use of the kiosk interface when needed. Experiences with the kiosk show that the VMC-kiosk interface is appropriate for public use. Providing a real configuration example of a modern kiosk system, our work contributes to the design of remote services, kiosk interfaces, and information systems, and brings into focus a new way of using information systems with VMC over the Internet.

The assumption behind kiosks used in public places is that they are meant for simple tasks and crowds of people who do not require help. Complex occasionally used information-intensive services provided by kiosks, diversified customer groups and situations where people are dependent on the systems available, have challenged this assumption. Our study on a new video-mediated communication (VMC) based service kiosk shows that the help from a real person by VMC is a possible solution to the problems and the human-facilitated kiosk interface is appropriate for the systems used in public places. Based on experiences with the kiosk, we suggest enhancing VMC-based kiosk interfaces for information systems

Face-to-face service, implemented as a fully automatic remote self-service, is a common way to digitalize public and private services. Continually diversifying user groups have repeatedly challenged this strategy and the usercenteredness in the systems design. Interface personalization has been used to improve web services but service production still suffers from complex interaction processes, trust, and security problems. One solution for the problems would be a human-to-human interface-based remote system via the Internet. When designed to utilize audiovisual communication in the online interaction of real people, a kiosk interface remains simple, enables the personalization of the actual customer service with the trust, security, and ease of use ensuing from the need of the service and the individual facilitating the interaction