UK – Innovation agency Special Projects has created an algorithmic concept that dramatically reduces our contact with public self-checkouts.
The concept, Moving Buttons, allows up to 50 people to use a touchscreen without ever tapping the same spot, giving customers a safer way to use shared interfaces such as self-service checkouts. The technology, which requires only a software update, works by intelligently moving the position of buttons around the screen for each new customer. The system then alerts staff when it is ready to be cleaned.
The concept is designed to provoke businesses to look to algorithms in order to combat the spread of Covid-19 and other germs, as consumers become increasingly aware of how they navigate shared environments. According to Adrian Westaway, principal of Special Projects, the agency ‘wanted to visualise how this transaction could be made safer through innovative interface design and put customers at lower risk of coming into contact with other customers’.
To find out more ways designers are reframing the visual language of social distancing, read our design direction, Positive Barriers.
