Touch screens

The interface between the till operator and the retail software solutions is a key part of your system. A touch-screen is certainly the quickest and most attraction option to choose.

Unless you are using the simplest sort of Electronic cash registers as your EPOS solution, you will have to consider touch screens. A touch-screen is a sort of combination mouse and monitor. The size is just like a normal monitor, measured across the diagonal. The screen is covered in a transparent touch sensitive layer which detects pressure from fingers or pointers. If you are using a PC as a till to run some sort of retail EPOS software, you will find that the touchscreen operates almost like a mouse. Touching and dragging on the screen moves the pointer around.

Some sophisticated electronic cash registers have built-in touchscreens – however, normally we are talking about regular touchscreens which operate as a replacement for the computer mouse and monitor attached to a computer running your EPOS software.

Double clicking is achieved by double tapping on the screen. Right clicking is also possible. You don’t use your right finger  Usually the touchscreen driver can be programmed to present a small icon on the screen. Clicking this puts the system into “right click mode” and the next single click is delivered as a right click. Touchscreens are not so good for very fine work. Sometimes worth keeping a mouse under the desk for delicate jobs that can be cumbersome with the fingers.

Most touchscreen software drivers have a tool for calibrating the touchscreen. This involves a few clicks on a training screen to teach the touchscreen driver where you are actually clicking. If your touchscreen clicking seems a bit inaccurate, then you probably need to follow the calibration process.

Along with the monitor connector, touchscreens are available with old fashioned serial port connectors or USB port connectors. This enables some method of transmitting the mouse information to the PC. Serial port interfaces can be a nightmare – they have a tendency to grab hold of ports and generally refuse to release them, even if the touchscreen is not working. The usual symptom of this is when some other device like a receipt printer is suddenly not working.

It is worth bearing in mind whether your chosen EPOS retail software is designed with touch screens in mind. If it is developed without considering a touchscreen then the user interface controls will often be to fiddly to operate with clumsy fat fingers on a touch screen. Imagine trying to use something like Excel with a touchscreen! Software made for touchscreen interfaces will often have large and usually ugly looking buttons and controls – they don’t looks slick, but make things much easier when using a touchscreen. The EPOS software developer should also try to keep common workflows close together. It is time consuming to have to keep moving the hand from one side of the screen to another when completing a common sequence of clicks.

Most windows based EPOS and retail software does not have be programmed to technically work with a touchscreen. If it works with a monitor and a mouse, then it will work with a touchscreen. The EPOS software doesn’t actually know – as far as it knows, you’re using a mouse and regular monitor.

The main downside of touchscreen is the cost. Usually 3 to 4 times that of a normal monitor. Like most specialist computer hardware, the cost is often higher than more mass market items, and the margins for the reseller are larger. Like most retail hardware, a deal can often be struck, especially if you are buying several. Bear in mind that most smaller retail solution providers do not carry stock of things like touchscreens, they purchase them to order for specific projects.

Part of the reason for this is colour. Touchscreens are available in a range of colours – commonly black, white and cream. Normally you, as the retailer, get to choose a colour scheme which fits in well with your shop.

They are fairly reliable, the only problem is wear. As you’ll normally only use the touchscreen with one bit of software, your EPOS software, you’ll often be clicking on the same patch of screen over and over again – this can actually wear the screen away in some commonly used places by a combined action of sweat and abrasion. There is no avoiding this. Get your employees to wash their hands more often!

The overriding advantage of touchscreens is the speed and therefore ease of use. A practiced operator will be able to post transactions into the EPOS retail software several times faster than with a mouse. And you can rarely find space for a mouse on your shop counter! If you can afford it, always go for touchscreens!