Information kiosks are machines that can disseminate information, handle transactions or perform both functions. For the purpose of our study, these kiosks are classified into four different types of information kiosks with respect to the functions that they perform. These four types of kiosks are Basic Information kiosks, High Transactional kiosks, High Information Dissemination kiosks and High-End kiosks. A questionnaire survey on the general public was conducted to find out the public views on the information kiosks. Focus group interviews and pilot tests were carried out to ensure the survey was feasible and that the structure of the questionnaire was clear and proper. Generally, the results of our survey showed that older users and those with high positions tend to use less of information kiosks. The reasons cited by users of information kiosks: need to find out information or perform some transactions, for convenience and out of curiosity. On the other hand, non-users of information kiosks cited that they do not use the kiosks because of inconvenience and a lack of need to use them. Generally, transactional kiosks are found to be the most preferred kiosks due to convenience reasons. On the other hand, for Basic and High Information Dissemination kiosks, users actually prefer personalised services to them. Our results also showed that except for High-End kiosks, people's preference of information kiosks to personalised services is not related to the demographic variables but rather the types of functions the kiosks perform.
Interactive Information Dissemination System (IIDS) - An Innovative ICT Model for Agro Advisory Services to the Indian Farmers