At 10:09 +0200 07/18/2002, Roberto Molari wrote:
>1- I must make a screen saver fo a kiosk
>My application after 2 minutes of "Idle" must play a Video and on a mouse
>event the application must come back the homePage... Which is the best way?
Well, you could just make a timeout script that goes to the video
screen when the kiosk has been idle for two minutes. You could even
do a "play" call with "play done" to return to where the kiosk left
off, if you wanted; though we've found in the past it's more useful
to actually return to the main page of the kiosk if the screensaver
has executed.
A moment's thought tells you why. If the kiosk has been inactive long
enough for its screensaver to fire up, odds are very good the user
activating it now is not the original user wanting to come back to
where he left off, but is in fact a new user starting over from the
beginning. Thus it makes more sense to start from the beginning in
that case.
>2- Is there a some differences o problems betweens a touch screen and a
>normal monitor?
As mentioned, no rollovers, and make the buttons big.
Tall, actually, is more important than wide. Touchscreen displays
have a definite parallax problem at any but a nearly-flat viewing
angle, so it's very easy for fingertips to miss small buttons.
As far as general design goes, try to limit the choices to just three
or four per "page". A kiosk with a dozen buttons is overwhelming.
Make your buttons *obvious*. Your users do not have hours to play
with the program or study a manual to learn how it works. It's got to
be self-apparent right away.
Have a big "home" button on each screen that lets the user return to
the main page from anywhere. If I'm looking at the display after
Bluto Hamfist has been poking at it for three minutes I have no idea
where the hell he left off, and what's on the page now will probably
be irrelevant to me, so I'll definitely make use of that "home"
button to start over.
If at all possible use LCD screens rather than phosphor. They consume
less power, put out less heat, and don't have burn-in issues.
--
Warren Ockrassa | http://www.nightwares.com/
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Author | Director 8.5 Shockwave Studio: A Beginner's Guide
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