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From: gorman@acsu.buffalo.edu (anne-marie k gorman)
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
Subject: Yucky ATM interfaces (WAS Re: Touchscreens)
Message-ID: <80373@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>
Date: 18 Jun 91 20:14:10 GMT
References: <8435@awdprime.UUCP> <6460@ns-mx.uiowa.edu> <1991Jun17.062203.1381@sq.sq.com>
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In article <1991Jun17.062203.1381@sq.sq.com> msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader) writes
>
>However, I'm particularly annoyed by a machine installed a few months
>ago in my bank branch.  (Royal Bank of Canada, Yonge/Eglinton branch).

My bank (Citibank NYS) has several different styles of ATM, and non of them
does it right!  (Though none of them quite matches the imbecility of the one 
Mark described, either.)

For starters, the slot into which you insert your card projects out from the 
surface of the machine, and since the machine surface is tilted with respect 
to the floor, the diagram showing you which direction the card goes in is
very ambiguous.  I haven't explained that very clearly; the problem is that
you look straight at the diagram of the card, but it's not clear whether
this is the view from below the slot or from above the slot.

The tilt of the screen on one of the styles of machine makes for parallax
between the arrows on the screen and the buttons they're suposed to point
to; depending on the angle you see it from (i.e. on how tall you are,
since nothing adjusts), the arrows may appear to be pointing to nothing
or to the wrong button.

You have to push your card in, then pull it out.  If you do it too quickly
*or* too slowly, the machine won't read it.  Every other ATM I've ever seen
just holds on to your card till you're done.  Why does Citibank have to 
be different?  Half the time my hands are full of envelope, deposit slip,
etc. anyway.  Why not just put the card away, you say?  Because...

Worst of all, you have to insert (and pull out) your card more than once
in the course of doing your business!  If you want to do more than one
operation, in the middle of a transaction the machine will ask you for the
card again and then for your PIN. 


Anne-Marie