KioSoft
Integrating multi-market platforms with a focus on scalability.
Overview
I joined KioSoft as a UX design intern in the middle of a complete overhaul of our tools. The goal was to unify web and mobile experiences for both machine owners, operators, and consumers into a single platform, while also adapting products to work across both laundry and amusement markets. Through this internship, I was able to work on tooling that simplified learning curves and created seamless interactions for 400k+ users. By the end of my 4 months, I had collaborated closely with the product managers and developers to hand off my work for either development or further design exploration in a future iteration.
Role: UX Designer
Wire-framing, Interaction Design, User Research, Visual Design
Timeline
4 months (May - Aug 2025)
What is KioSoft?
KioSoft Technologies is a global provider for self-service payment and management solutions that combines hardware, software, and mobile technologies – if you’ve ever used a kiosk machine for your laundry, on a vending machine, or at the arcade, chances are that it was a KioSoft product!
Problems
Prior research revealed that our information architecture was difficult to scale, spread across multiple overlapping platforms, and presented steep learning curves for users through inconsistent messaging, flows, and design.
By working through a multi-year plan focused on consolidating and cleaning up existing tools, I got the opportunity to jump on a variety of different projects that were all happening in parallel, and tackle a different problem in each one:
I've broken down this case study into 3 brief sections as opposed to one long process in order to fully showcase the variety of projects I worked on during my time at KioSoft!
KioPos
To learn more about how I adapted a point of sale system from one market to another, check out my section detailing KioPos (and the KioPos Back-office)
KioCentral
To hear more about my explorations with designing for scalability, visit KioCentral
Goals
The overarching goals driving each of these projects were to:
Simplify the user learning curve – as a company focused on providing software for technicians, there was a ton of industry-specific jargon to sift through
Creating a seamless digital ecosystem by unifying our platforms, allowing for management at a glance and eliminating the need for operators to switch systems for each machine.
Designing for scalability: when working with hardware products, having scalable software is crucial for the aforementioned seamless digital ecosystem!
KioPos
What is KioPos?
KioPos is our point of sale system for a variety of store types. I worked on refreshing the existing UI, originally made for a laundry room, and adapting the system to support transactions in an amusement setting following user interviews with existing customers. In later phases, I conducted early design explorations of the system being used for amusement, and handed off the frameworks for future amusement-focused features to be added.
Old UI
The old UI for KioPos was very visually rudimentary, and had limited functionality on the admin side of things. There was a lot of clutter in the number of items that could be added to checkout, and user feedback showed difficulty navigating through specific tasks due to unintuitive layouts, sizing, and visual indicators. These are some of the screens associated with just one of the flows - adding items and checking out.
Even just at a glance, it's hard to fully understand all of the components on the screen, nevermind guessing at what all the other buttons do!
New UI
Additionally, adding in more confirmation modals and rethinking the user flow helped introduce a better UX, minimizing the margin for user error.
Next Steps
Throughout my term, I worked on Phase 2 of KioPos, focusing on the sales feature. I also revamped the backoffice for KioPos, making it easier for operators to navigate transaction reports. Following my work in Phase 2, I created medium fidelity flows for Phases 3 and 4 of KioPos, working on preparing for new amusement-focused features to be added in the next quarter.
KioMax
What is KioMax?
KioMax is a platform combining two existing operator tools - KLM, designed to assist operators with setting up and installing new locations/machines, and CleanOperator, which supports customer service staff and manages revenue reporting, refunds, and more. A medium-fidelity flow already existed, and I designed a high fidelity flow with refined UX, consistent styling, and cohesion with our other updated products.
This section is currently under construction! Please feel free to check out some of my other case studies.
KioCentral
What is KioCentral?
KioCentral is the full combined mobile and web platform for machine operators to manage all of their machines and backoffice details at a glance! This is the multi-year project the UX team at KioSoft is currently working through. I worked to redesign the system settings with a focus on scalability to support additional features and data.
This section is currently under construction! Please feel free to check out some of my other case studies.
Reflections
The biggest things I learned on this design journey.
Designing for Kiosks
This was my first time designing for a kiosk, which came with new learning curves for what intuitive design really means. I learned to separate any preconceived notions I had about best practices for things like layout and visual indicators, and also got better at understanding the differences between designing for phone/tablet versus kiosk, even though they are all touchscreen devices. For example, when designing for kiosks most actions are often for transactions of some sort, and users benefit greatly from confirmation modals where on a phone they might be more accustomed to invisible confirmations.
Working Through Multi-phase Projects
Throughout the term, I had the opportunity to not only work through big multi-phase projects, but also work on multiple projects within the big KioCentral plan. Each of these projects had their own timelines, PMs, and engineers that I would work with, and this experience allowed me to learn more about how the design process changes with each phase of a long project. Oftentimes things wouldn't go to plan — we would receive new user feedback midway through a phase, deal with unexpected delays in development, and learning to adapt my design process with these changes while still adhering to our overarching timeline was a huge lesson learned in juggling multiple timelines, managing input from different teams, and still producing quality and flexible work.
