People are different. We are short, tall, young, old, quick and slow. Our abilities to see, to hear, to react and to move vary between people and with age. By not taking this into consideration businesses can inadvertently make it difficult for 15% of their potential customers to use their products and services, specifically older adults and people with disabilities. This number is only growing as consumers collectively grow older, but many products and services remain inaccessible to them. An accessible product or service is one which can be used by all its intended users, taking into account their differing capabilities and abilities.
Point of Sale (POS) terminals are an integral part of the way businesses process transactions from consumers, but their design and deployment within retail spaces can create barriers to making them accessible to everyone. To put this into context 3.4 billion point-of-sale transactions were processed in Canada 2013 alone.
This document is intended to help manufacturers of Point of Sale (POS) terminals understand how to design and adopt features so that the widest range of the abilities of their end users are taken into consideration.
This document is also intended to help businesses select point of sale terminals and setup point of sale environments so that they are accessible and usable to all their customers.