Recently I was talking to my relative who works at the American Airlines counter at the airport.  He was telling me that the kiosk computers, that are in most airports now, haven't made a dent in how busy the counters are.  Bottom line, he says, is that people are afraid of using computers.

I have a totally different opinion.  Just happened to fly a bit ago and used a kiosk to get a boarding pass.  My opinion is that the User Interface is ALL wrong and that is what scares people off. 

Problem #1. The starting page had 4 or 5 big touch buttons on it.  There was "Get a boarding pass", "Change seat assignment", "Change meal type", etc...  If you think about, 95% of the people are there to get the effing boarding pass.  The other 5%?  Who cares, that's why airlines have people at the counter - to handle edge cases.  Why confuse the 95% with other buttons.  The simple solution is crying out to be implemented.  Have a gigantic button, that takes 3/4 of the screen real estate, inviting you to get a boarding pass.  Even if you want the kiosk to handle other requests, there is nothing wrong with placing a small link in the bottom right that takes you to "Other Services".

Problem #2.  For identification, the kiosk asked me to provide a driver's license or a credit card.  Ok, no problem.  However, it wanted to me place it into an ATM style slot (e.g. it sucks the driver's license in wholly).  So, let's see, 5 minutes before my boarding time, I am supposed to trust a computer I've never seen and just blindly believe that I'll get my ID back?  Sorry, I've seen enough bugs in even most well written programs to know that sh*t happens.   How about providing a grocery style or swipe type of identification system. 

No wonder, nobody is using the kiosks.