Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!linus!philabs!ttidca!excel!frazier From: frazier@excel.TTI.COM (kent Frazier) Newsgroups: comp.human-factors Subject: Re: Yucky ATM interfaces (WAS Re: Touchscreens) Message-ID: <27204@ttidca.TTI.COM> Date: 26 Jun 91 15:28:24 GMT References: <1991Jun19.233836.19040@ohmeda.com> Sender: nobody@ttidca.TTI.COM Reply-To: frazier@excel.TTI.COM (kent Frazier) Distribution: comp Lines: 63 In article <80373@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>: gorman@acsu.buffalo.edu (anne-marie k gorman) writes >My bank (Citibank NYS) has several different styles of ATM, and none of them >does it right! (Though none of them quite matches the imbecility of the one >Mark described, either.) There are some new ones that hopefully have corrected some of your complaints. But I don't know if they've made it to upstate New York yet. >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. Good comment (now prominently posted on our central bulletin board). We are making significant changes in the card reader design (mostly to accomodate mag-stripe (which Citibank hasn't used 'til recently). >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. The new atms don't have physical buttons anymore. >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... One of the major problems that (generic) ATM users have is that they often walk off and leave their cards in the ATM. Citibank attempted to solve this by never taking your card from you. Some people get very nervous when ATM machines eat their cards (will it really give it back at the end??). Card reader technology is improving, and the newer ones should solve the problems of having to do it "just right". >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. Again, if you walk off from a (generic) ATM leaving your card, and not having properly logged off, the next person in line has full access to your account. To ensure that this isn't happening, we ask for intermediate validations along the way. Admittedly it's an inconvenience (and there are probably better ways to accomplish the same thing... I'll have to think about that...) >Anne-Marie Kent Frazier - I speak for Citicorp in no official capacity, and am not an expert on our ATMs (though I can find people who are) . . . .