An interactive kiosk is an unattended screen people operate themselves: to order, check in, look something up, or navigate. The defining constraint is the word unattended: nobody is there to explain it, restart it, or apologise for it.

That drives everything. The software must run locked down so the browser or OS underneath is unreachable, return to its home state after an abandoned session, and survive being touched by someone who will not read instructions. Kiosk mode is a security posture, not a display setting.

The caveat is that kiosks succeed when they beat a queue and fail when they replace a person who was helping. Self-order screens work in fast food because the alternative is waiting; the same hardware fails in a pharmacy because the visitor had a question the interface cannot answer. Ask what the alternative is for the visitor, not what it saves in staff cost.

Plan for physical reality too: the screen will be used in gloves, in the rain, by children, and by someone who is furious it has not worked. Accessibility is not optional: a kiosk that is the only way to do something must be operable from a seated height and by someone who cannot see it.