Tech Support for Touch Screens

ElJeffe

The idea of touch screens was recently brought up as a component of a solution for creating a point-of-sale system at my work. Given the other details of the project, the idea of touch screens seems ridiculously over-kill-y, and would incur needless expenses. Nobody involved in the project has much functional knowledge of touch screens outside a standard layman's understanding (you poke the screen and stuff happens), but they all seem enamored by the idea. For my part, I'm trying to amass some knowledge of the subject. One area I have few resources on is in tech support. Nobody any of us are familiar with has any experience actually supporting touch screens.

I was hoping that anybody who has functional experience with these things from any angle could opine on them. Do they tend to break often? Do they require any special upkeep? Do the screens have to be cleaned often because they get people's grubby mitts all over them? Are they particularly easy or difficult to troubleshoot when something goes wrong? Are they easy or difficult to set up?

Any additional insight you could offer involving this technology would be appreciated, as well.

PirateJon

We use these : http://www.drs-ts.com/walkabout/products_specs_hh.html. They are 'ruggedized', but they go through a LOT of abuse - all weather, out doors, in the hands of heavy equipment operators and such. The screens themselves are a standard part, but part of a complete package so we don't have to worry about drivers (much).


Do they tend to break often?

Not at all, especially in our environment.

Do they require any special upkeep?

We put plastic proctectors over the screen - keeps the functionality and reduces wear.

Do the screens have to be cleaned often because they get people's grubby mitts all over them?

Just the occasional wipe off.

Are they particularly easy or difficult to troubleshoot when something goes wrong?

easy. It pretty much works or it doesn't. It's all a sinlge piece, so you just swap it out if it doesn't register or the cursor jumps all over.

Are they easy or difficult to set up?

built-in so I can't help here.


anecdote: I know that many many local bars and resturants use them for POS so it can't be that bad.

go go google search: http://www.howstuffworks.com/question716.htm

ElJeffe

One additional consideration is that these terminals need to double as simple computer monitors, as well. Operators need to be able to switch between using the POS and using, principally, a web browser to access other parts of the software, using standard mouse and keyboard.

brandotheninjamaster

I have touch screens at my company, the ones they use need no configuring to be a normal monitor. The only thing they needed when came out the box was drivers, so it could respond to your touches.

Ganluan

I've written applications for touch screens at work, and it's pretty much the same as writing any other app. The drivers for the touch screen will make it seem like a mouse click is occurring where the person touches, so there isn't really any additional development that has to be done.

They're durable enough to be carried out in the field, and we're actually looking in ones that attach to your wrist with a velcro strap, like some kind of Star Trek communicator :P

Ramius

We've been using these Planar ones for about 18 months for a POS system in our cafeteria. They see a pretty good amount of use, probably at least 1500 transactions a day (split unevenly across 4 POS registers).

Searching our helpdesk archives, I see only ONE help call related to the display, which was just a loose VGA cable. This compared to 9 calls related to the card-swiper, 8 calls related to the software, 9 calls related to "other hardware" (such as the PC, the scale, the printer), and 6 calls for user request or user error.

So, I'd say from a tech support standpoint that they have been very easy to support. You just plug it in, and it "just works". They are pretty pricey, though. Cost about as much as the PC. We haven't had to replace one yet, thankfully.

Falx

From my experience, and this may just be a local thing, if they do get damaged they are incredibly expensive to fix. Make sure you get a damn good warranty.

blincoln

It's certainly possible to get touchscreens that are durable. My employer has them deployed as part of a POS system across most of the US, and the people using them are very non-technical. I would really, really recommend doing some extensive hardware evaluation before you settle on a model. I am not a POS expert, but my experience has been that (like most markets geared towards large companies with lots of money) there are a *ton* of crappy vendors and products out there, so you really have to research and test well before committing to one. Otherwise 3-5 years later you find out that they wrote all the software in VBScript and VB6, and not only that they wrote it badly, and they want to charge you $100,000 to rewrite their code so that the SQL accounts used across the entire platform which have SA access are hardcoded to have passwords which are the same as their usernames.
I would also suggest that you consider ditching the idea of also having a mouse, and just use the touch-screen for everything. What we did was use Group Policy and registry settings and whatnot to do things like increase the width of scrollbars in Windows so that they are big enough to use with your finger. I suggest this because it's one less thing to have fail, it will save desk/counter space, and IMO one pointing interface is more intuitive and less confusing. The keyboards for our system have a little touchpad built in (as a backup, or for use by techs in situations where the touchscreen drivers aren't loaded), but that's because they were custom-built. It sounds like you are using off-the-shelf gear, in which case I would just have any techs stick a USB mouse in their bag in case of situations where the touchscreen doesn't work.

ElJeffe

Okay, it's good to know that if we were to go with them, they at least wouldn't break down and cause a shit-ton of tech support headaches.

On this note, how do they handle data entry as compared to a standard keyboard/mouse combo? A lot of transactions would require entering names, notes (medical information, for example) and so on. Can touchscreens handle that gracefully?

Ramius

They are not very useful if you will have to do a lot of typing. If you are writing the software, it would be trivial to create a bunch of buttons on the screen to act as a virtual keyboard which the data-entry person could poke at. This could be used to do a find-as-you-type name lookup, perhaps. But entering notes, you would really really want a keyboard. There is nothing technical to prevent you having one, I don't think. Usually these touchscreens hook up to a normal PC. I don't know what sort of deployment you are considering, though. In our cafeteria, for example, there would be no room at the checkout for a keyboard. But if you are entering medical info, it doesn't sound like a real POS anyways...

amateurhour

We use the NCR models. They have been in use in our business for over a year now without a single trouble call. They're spillproof, scratchproof, and shakeproof. I'm a fan, and I've been like the maytag repairman dealing with them.

blincoln

I agree with Ramius. They are not a good keyboard replacement for anything but short text. The big reasons for this IMO are:
- No tactile response.
- Inability to touch-type.
- The models I'm familiar with do not support anything like multi-touch, so no key combinations on your virtual keyboard.
- Poor ergonomics (having your hands way up at the display instead of down where a keyboard would be).
- A virtual keyboard would take up a good chunk of your screen space.