8 ms·
Touch screens and mixed user interfaces on things like cash machines, petrol pumps, etc kind of bother me - maybe later posts will go into this as the blog ends
by leejo 8y ago
Touch screens and mixed user interfaces on things like cash machines, petrol pumps, etc kind of bother me - maybe later posts will go into this as the blog ends saying there will be a follow-up.
Just a couple of anecdotes - the first being cash machines where I input the PIN using the traditional buttons on the numeric pad, then i start using the touchscreen to make other choices. Pick one or the other, not a mixture of the two. Or self service petrol pumps that end up covered in grease and dirt, because they're in that kind of environment.
Once i was waiting in line at the Eurotunnel and the person in front of me was clearly struggling. It took them about five minutes to get through the registration process and they kept leaning over out of their car window, stabbing away at the touchscreen with their finger appearing somewhat frustrated. I assumed they must have had trouble finding their booking.
When I got to the booth myself I pressed the touchscreen and it was immediately clear that the calibration was off, by about a couple of finger widths - this was enough to cause the problems for the user before me, as they were trying to type in their booking reference but it would always choose the wrong digits. So when I typed in my booking reference I moved my finger a little to the side to account for the calibration error. Easy! Well, not so much if you're not technically inclined enough to recognise this kind of issue when you see it.
- michaelgrafl 8y agoI think the only situation in which I prefer a touchscreen to anything else is when the function of the device completely changes a lot and I can't have keyboard and mouse. Re: calibration: In Austria we have touchscreens for buying train tickets at the station. As a tall person looking down on the screen I always have to factor in some offset, touching slightly beneath the thing I want to hit. Not that bad with big areas. But typing out stuff on the software keyboard is terrible.
- digi_owl 8y agoAn older solution there is soft buttons around the edges. Older ATMs used them to allow you to make context sensitive choices, while also having the numeric pad. And now i find myself pondering a "smartphone" with rows of buttons along the longer edges of the screen...
- kjeetgill 8y agoI think the mixed mode works really well. Touchscreens are pretty natural and intuitive, especially for things like ATMs, but you can't have braille on ATM touch screens so you need the buttons no matter what. At least in the US they usually have headphone jacks to replace the information presented on the screen though, and since you have a screen you might as well make it a touch screen.
- digi_owl 8y ago> Touchscreens are pretty natural and intuitive Try to watch someone in their 60s operate them and you will learn that the are anything but. My dad find them endlessly frustrating, as his first instinct when talking about something in an image or something is to put his finger on it. But that invariably triggers something on such a screen. He also struggles with things like Google Maps on a PC with a scroll mouse, as to him the natural action is to "pull" the map closer rather than "zoom in". End result is that he often find himself scrolling the wrong way...
- madeofpalk 8y agoI've seen the 'super hybrid' a few times, at least in Australia, on both ATMs and credit card machines. A touch screen (with physical numpad) at but with positional buttons on the side so the choices can be both touched, or use the buttons. For me it creates a bit of cognitive overhead at first - I'm getting mixed messages as to how to interact - but then I make a random guess and its right. No matter which I tried, I would have been right.
- RandallBrown 8y agoTry watching children operate touchscreen and you'll see that they are quite intuitive. The biggest difference is they don't have 60+ years of experience telling them what won't work (because it didn't used to) like your dad probably does.
- digi_owl 8y agoKids will try anything, just to see what happens (i think i issued the format c: command within days of the first PC arriving in our home back in the day). They are possibly the worst indicator of "intuitive" out there.
- cesarb 8y agoAFAIK, there's a special reason for the PIN pad: it encrypts the PIN, so the ATM doesn't have access to it. That's why even ATMs with touch screens still keep the PIN pad.
- hkai 8y agoI thought it's just because it's way too easy to spy on the screen.
- paulie_a 8y agoSide note, I hate every device that needlessly makes a beep. Everything seems to make a useless audible sound constantly.