11 ms·
> The same thing with IKEA: I always rely on the manual and just blindly follow the instructions, and gets very frustrated if the instructions miss one step. F
by II2II 2y ago
> The same thing with IKEA: I always rely on the manual and just blindly follow the instructions, and gets very frustrated if the instructions miss one step.
Following instructions is a good thing. Plenty of people damage stuff when putting it together since it looks obvious, but they usually miss critical details. I would imagine that the people who designed the card scanners had to put a lot of thought into their design simply because they know many people won't read instructions and would do as you suggest: figure out a way to insert [the card] somewhere.
- markus_zhang 2y agoYeah...but apparently she is more handy than me. I always joked she should work as an engineer of some sort.
- bluGill 2y agoFor things like IKEA furniture there often is a good engineering reason to do things in a specific order that is not obvious. For furniture this is okay - nobody does it often (or if you do it is a few things that you memorize the instructions for). Transit has different considerations though. It is critical that doing the right thing is obvious without reading instructions. Someone might have an important meeting to make and the time to read the instructions (or wait for the person in from of them to read the instructions) means they are late. Or (worse?!?) that time spent in line is annoying enough that someone decides to buy a car. You can somewhat get around this with more fare machines - but they are expensive and take up a lot of space. Fortunately we have human-machine interaction specialists who can tell you how to make a fare machine that is easy to use correctly without needing any instructions.