I cut my teeth on multimedia and software design in 1994 at a tiny company with a big name: Interactive Media Design Corporation.

This was around the time when CD-ROM’s were big and Netscape was the big internet story. IMDC was developing a concept it called “break-room kiosks”. The idea was to provide a bundle of convenient services at a single location people frequent.

The IMDC Breakroom Kiosk

The pilot concept combined HR services, health insurance provider and banking. For example, a small business with 200 employees could provide a one-stop interface for time reporting, benefits changes and review, printing a health benefit claim form and trying out some loan scenarios for a car purchase.

Blue Cross/Blue Shield Intro Screen

Chase Bank Calculator Screen

I knew it was time to start looking for another job after we presented a pilot to the HR manager at Liz Claiborne: He said “Why should I buy this thing and ask my employees to stand in line during their lunch when soon the internet will let us do all of this at our desks?”

We did accomplish some pretty ambitious goals using Director on Macs and PCs inside kiosks. We integrated with touch screens, dialed into the insurance provider, scraped and parsed text from mainframe screens to fill in claim forms, and dialed into the ATM network to pull balances and activity.