Publication date: 10 November 2009
The latest tool for retailers to use in these efforts is Joya™, a handheld wireless terminal from Datalogic™, built with the help of display technology from Anders Electronics.
Designed for personal use by shoppers in retail environments, Joya helps retailers to satisfy all of their key business priorities, from enhancing the efficiency of the check-out process to increasing customer intimacy via proximity marketing and enhanced interactivity.
The Joya pod is a wireless-enabled handheld terminal that shoppers collect on arrival at a store after logging in at a kiosk using a loyalty card. Customers use the Joya for barcode scanning as they choose items from the shelves. The device is equipped with WiFi, Bluetooth and USB connectivity, allowing it to interconnect from anywhere within the store to the retailer’s “behind-the-scenes” computer systems.
Although self-scanning devices have become a fairly familiar concept in shops, the addition in Joya of wireless connectivity allows retailers to implement a number of innovative features. For instance, Bluetooth can be used for close-proximity communication, connecting the shopper to wireless access points positioned at various locations around the store. This in turn means that the device’s high quality display and sound capabilities can be used to provide shoppers with information relevant to the products they are browsing, such as allergy advice, recipes, discounts and special offers.
As barcodes are scanned, the wireless connections also allow Datalogic ‘Shopevolution™’ software running on the retailer’s server to feed back to the Joya a running tally of the amount spent and loyalty points earned. Because of the high quality and clarity of the user interface, video and image-based content can be used to convey information in as engaging a fashion as possible.
The first and most obvious benefit of such a self-scanning system is that it makes the payment procedure much faster.
Because all of the goods are already scanned, they can be placed straight in to carrier bags in the shopper’s trolley or basket, without the need to unload and re-pack at the check-out. This is efficient for the customer, and reduces the retailers’ operation costs. The key to successful adoption of a device like Joya is to make it appealing to use. Shoppers are easily deterred by “the shock of the new”; using the terminal must be perceived to be a simpler option than the traditional alternative. If well designed, the device becomes the customer’s key method of interaction with the retailer.
For these reasons, usability and ergonomics are key to the design of Joya. The unit itself is lightweight, with soft lines and rounded edges providing a pleasing ‘feel’ in the hand. The customer can input to the device using either a touchscreen or a backlit keypad with six keys.
Adding enhanced colour graphics capability to the terminal, which was originally launched in 2002 with a monochrome screen, was therefore an important step in improving the quality of customers’ engagement in the overall shopping experience.
Specifying display technology for this key role in establishing the Joya User Machine Relationship (UMR) presented Anders with a number of challenges. From a practical point of view, the display needed to conform to strict constraints on weight and physical size, so that the overall design could remain as ergonomic as possible.
Moreover, a unit like Joya is inevitably subject to a high level of physical stress. It is used on the move, and drops and shocks are inevitable. Therefore, robustness was also a key requirement. Equally important was long operating life to ensure long-term cost-effectiveness, and to prevent field failures from creating a negative impact on customer perceptions.
While the physical specifications were exacting, aesthetic considerations were equally important. Today, expectations of video-equipped appliances are high. Younger, ‘technology-savvy’ consumers are used to watching high-quality video content on handheld appliances such as portable media players and mobile phones. But even those less familiar with such devices are accustomed to excellent video reproduction via flat screen TVs and computer monitors, not to mention newer developments such as moving billboard advertising in train stations.
If a device like Joya is to be successfully used to present video content, it needs to do it extremely well. Moreover, the video screen forms the heart of the UMR for such a terminal. The customer must be able to pick up the Joya and use it straight away without training or using a manual, and without the kind of familiarisation period that people are prepared to invest in a domestic appliance, for example. It is therefore vital that the terminal presents a highly intuitive, simple graphical user interface (GUI).
Yet all of this need to take place in a brightly-lit retail outlet, where ambient light conditions can mitigate strongly against the use of any kind of screen, and it needs to be implemented via a lightweight, battery-powered appliance.
As a hardware solution, Anders specified a semi-custom thin film transistor (TFT) liquid crystal display (LCD) module. The chip-on-glass module, which has an integrated HX8347 controller device and built-in DC/DC converter, is based on transmissive micro reflective (TMR) technology and can display 262,000 colours at a pixel resolution of 240 (RGB) x 320 (QVGA quality). With a 2.8in (71mm) diagonal display size, it weighs just 18.5g, in keeping with the requirement to keep overall product weight to a minimum.
To provide the all-important combination of high brightness, excellent contrast ratio, and low power consumption, the module uses an LED backlight system allowing brightness adjustment by the use of a resistor or potentiometer.
The result is a display with a 300:1 contrast ratio, backlight illumination intensity of 300cd/m2, and response time of 25ms. These features, combined with the use of TMR technology to provide better colour saturation and indoor performance than a pure transflective panel, deliver a display that can show quality video, even in conditions of high ambient light.
The display also provides a highly robust solution, as required by Datalogic. The module is vibration- and drop-tested and rated for a lifetime of 50,000 hours. It is also fully tested at high and low temperature, and under thermal shock conditions.
“Graphical display technology is fundamental to the benefits offered by Joya,” explained Luigi Frison, Marketing Manager Enterprise Business Solutions at Datalogic Mobile s.r.l. “Our aim is to create ‘the iPod of shopping’, benefiting both retailers and consumers by providing exceptional interactive potential at the point of purchase. Anders helped us to do that, not just by providing the hardware we needed, but also by understanding our fundamental requirement for visual content at the heart of the UMR.”
Equipped with advanced display technology, the Joya terminal is now showing its full potential. Not only can retailers track buying habits and offer information, they can track shoppers’ paths around their stores and better understand their customers’ behaviour. A new feature currently under development allows shoppers to create a shopping list via the store’s website, and have the list appear on the Joya terminal on arrival at the store. The terminal can be used to guide the user to the correct location to pick up each product, and as each item is picked and scanned, it is automatically ticked off the list.
Such innovations look set to continue the trend of providing products that are easy and enjoyable to use to enhance customers’ experience of shopping. This same technology can also provide retailers with better understanding, and to offer very real and practical help in running a business that at its most fundamental connects consumers with the products that they need.
Since 1952, Anders Electronics has been helping people interact with technology by streamlining the user-machine interface and optimising the user experience. A leading global supplier of display components, Intelligent Displays and GUI solutions, Anders Electronics also provides world-class design, development, integration, manufacturing and supply chain management.
With over 55 years of experience exceeding the expectations of blue chip customers across a wide range of sectors, unparalleled technological expertise, and an ingrained "people first" service orientation - Anders Electronics offers our OEM clients a single, dedicated source for all their display needs. A global sales and engineering infrastructure in Europe, North America, and the Middle East, coupled with a fulfilment and logistics presence in the Far East, ensure that Anders is available when our clients need us – in their language and time zone.
For further information, please visit www.anders-electronics.com
Datalogic Group is a world-class producer of bar code readers, data collection mobile computers, RFID systems and photoelectric sensors for the industrial automation sector. We offer innovative solutions for many industrial applications, from manufacturing to transportation & logistics and retail.
Datalogic is an industrial Group structured into three autonomous companies, aligned by specific products and markets: Datalogic Scanning, Datalogic Mobile and Datalogic Automation.
Datalogic Mobile, part of the Datalogic Group, is a global player in the Rugged Mobile Computers market.Enterprise Business Solutions, Datalogic Mobile Business Unit, develops complete Self-Shopping solutions and Consumer Relationship Technologies for the retail world.
