First impressions are a flow, not a couch. The lobby your visitors experience is a sequence of moments — arrival, orientation, check-in, waiting, greeting — and each one can be designed deliberately or left to chance.
Self check-in changes what a reception area is for. When the routine moves to a kiosk, the people at the desk get to do what only people can: host.
Design the flow, then the furniture
Start from the visitor's path, not the floor plan. Where do eyes land on entry? How many steps to the kiosk? What happens while a host walks down? Answer those and the couch picks itself.
