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Vending machine & Digital ID
Initial concept specification
Vending machines for age-restricted products have not existed at scale in the UK since the ban in October 2011 on their use for the sale of tobacco products as a result of the 2010 update of the Children and Young Persons (Protection from Tobacco) Act 1991 [2]
Given the widespread distribution of these vending machines were in unstaffed areas of retail outlets such as entrance foyers of public houses or hotels, it is widely interpreted from this statement that a lack of meaningful methods of age verification made it difficult to retail tobacco responsibly “Vending machines made it easy for under-18s to buy cigarettes because they were self-service and often unsupervised
Use of proof of age
The UK has an absence of government-issued ID; instead allowing regulatory bodies to accept various forms of ID under the widespread “Challenge 25” scheme which allows for consumers to present one of 4 identity forms to prove age and/or identity.
● Passport
● Driving License
● Military ID Card
● Any card bearing the PASS hologram
To date, there have been no open API’s created to enable a digital check or scan to take place that verifies the validity of each of these document types in the same way countries such as Germany or Italy has for checking physical ID cards at a staff less point of sale.
Additional challenges exist in the form of the numbers of foreign nationals living in the UK and the forms of proof of age or identity they have available for use. This challenge exists because someforeign nationals have differing residency status and therefore have different UK Government-issued cards that may prove age.
Vision
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1account to become the Age verification leader on vending machines, providing new ways of identification to protect Children and enable adult products business to trade responsibly.
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Reduce friction and verbal abuse at the sales points for both small and bigger business
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Ensure the correct customer and the supplier are aware of the Age restricted products and regulations
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Enable new business and new ways of releasing adult products such as vaping and alcohol
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There will be an aspiration to equal these controls as a minimum and more likely, better them.
There are two key components to this pilot:
1. Creation of a digital ID
2. Use of a digital ID at a vending machine to buy a product
The process
Research
3.6million
Current vapers
2.4million
ex- smokers
Age group
Lowest usage 18-24
Highest usage 35-44
Reason for vaping
- As an aid to quitting 28%
- Preventing relapse 18%
- Cut down smoking 10%
Challenge
Create a user friendly user journeys that allow users to interact with 1account's vending machine, buy vaping products, download the Digital ID the app to be age verified in a very short amount of time.
KPIs
Quantitave:
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No of ID created
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No of Successfull Age verification
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No if items sold
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No of successful transactions
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Time taken to buy a product
Quantitave
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How easy is the journey of age verifying?
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How easy was the overal journery?
Who are we designing for?
B2C: Based on the initial concept documentation its clear that our target audience are users of over 18, based in London and surrounding areas and no gender specific.
Given the chosen location for this first pilot, a petrol station the motivation for these users could be speed and has a smoker behaviour.
B2B: For this pilot 6 brands have shown interesting promoting their products, those brands are recognised on the market and have both stores and e-commerce established. of course their motivation is sales increase and accessability of their products where possible.
Business rules
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The main objective of this pilot project is to mainly sell the vaping product, minimum marketing for the machine as it is illegal to promote vaping products
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2 machines V42 capacity 36 products and V24 6 products display
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The machine can only be used by people of over 18
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A user can only should have the app installed before the age verification step
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A limited number of items can be bought per day and per user
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A transaction can not be greater than £100
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There can not be more than 5 items in the basket
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Age verification needs to happen before the payment
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New users will get 50% discount on the first purchase
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Once the Age verification is successful the payment is timed to 3mins
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Once the payment is successful the users has 1 minute to pick up the items otherwise the machine is locked
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A receipt is emailed to the user
Technology
Vending machines How do they operate? this took several visits to the head quarters where the machine was built, programmed and costumed.
We looked for inspiration in other users journeys but different products, we observed all the possible extra details such as cameras, sensors, sprays, machine internal operation, cue animations and the limitations such as timed transactions due to the payments flow.
What information needs to be sent to the machine?
Who manages the payments?
What data will be recorded and where is it kept?
Some of the above and more questions were covered as we were progressing and learning about new rules related to vaping.
Ideation
Together with the team, we runed a couple of sessions to identify the user flows refine and also identify the various stages of the whole experience.
The sketches started to be simplified for the rest of the teams, as there spikes needed for the Tech team as they team up with Aeguana and had allocated resources to work on this project, equally i had team up with Aeguanas Designer.
Working together with Aeguana has reduced the time on testing as we were replicating some of the journeys, so in that regards the design UI stage was leaner than other areas.
Prototyping and feedback
To get a much clearer picture of the whole journey and its details I had started prototyping in a mid-fidelity style to accelerate the process, coupled it with user journey mapping diagram, this was excellent exercise as could see areas in which logic was needed to be programmed for the machine to ensure the products were sold responsibly.
Refinement
After producing all the above designs, the success team got together to provide feedback and highlight any potential improvements
The result:
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Merge the basket and the home screen
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Focus on main key screens: Home, AV wall
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Fewer screens, replace with pop ups instead
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Add a screen saver
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Design handover
Approval was given and the design assets were submitted to Aeguana who will be managing all the screens implementation.
Any further changes on the screens will need to be sent to Aeguana.
Solution
2 Vending machines of different sizes, both currently in used one at a petrol station and another one will start a trial at a specialist retailer to replace the vaping and eventually the smoking kiosks.
There will be more locations where these machines could be placed, but for now is important to understand how users will interact with the machine and if they are satisfied with the experience.
