physical interface: Comments on stories by Holger Struppek

tom spider — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 18:40:56 GMT

Thanks for sharing some of your thought and design process on this!
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Ryan Bell — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 16:48:18 GMT

Thanks for sharing some of your thought and design process on this!

And now for some armchair quarterbacking:

Chase has a similar concept of “ATM preferences”, but I believe you set them via their online banking website rather than the ATM interface itself. This keeps the ATM simpler and prevents delays if other people are waiting. The drawback, of course, if that if you think of a change you want, you have to remember to go online later and make it.

The “Return Card” button is interesting – it’s a clear “cancel” option that stays in the same place in every screen, and cues you to pull your card out after hitting it. “Return Card – Including All Checks” is strange wording, though. Why isn’t this “Return Card – And All Checks”? Checks are not a type of card, nor part of your card.

Also, I question the general wisdom of ATM hardware that holds your card during an interaction. I’m not sure of the reasoning behind this decision, but I’ve seen too many cards get left in ATMs accidentally, in spite of all the flashing lights and beeping to remind you to remove it. Personally, I much prefer ATMs that simply have you swipe your card to start a transaction.

I agree wholeheartedly with the commenter who said that the main menu screen is still too busy, despite the visual cleanup. I actually like that all possible actions are in one place instead of buried in various submenus, but why isn’t “Get Cash” larger or highlighted somehow, along with “Deposit Checks”, as these are most likely the main things people do at an ATM? Other than the ordering of buttons, and the odd lone “stamp” icon (which sounds like more a reflection of Wells’ money-making priorities than actual user needs), there’s no obvious hierarchy or differentiation among all these options.

(The stamp icon raises an interesting process issue—who are you really designing for? Wells Fargo, or the ATM user? If their interests conflict, which wins?)

I also think your use of icons in the ATM shortcut buttons to denote different receipt preferences is less than ideal. Due to their positioning, the icons look like they describe the transaction as a whole. Combined with the check mark and “red cross-out” visuals, I would at first read the shortcut buttons in the zoomed-in photo as meaning: “Deposit Checks is OK”, “Get $40 Cash is not Allowed (or Failed)” (why?), “Deposit Checks is OK” (again? what’s the difference? it’s the same account…)

I would move these icons to the bottom corner of the button, to denote that they’re a secondary setting (and also that they apply to the *end* of the transaction, the receipt). The tiny dark stripe on the second one for “deposit checks” is also waaaay too subtle – how many users would ever notice that? I guess it indicates the preference to have check images printed on the receipt. There’s plenty of room in those deposit buttons to just write this (“Print copies” / “No copies”)

These are minor gripes, though – I like the design as a whole!

Manuel Pino — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 19:06:21 GMT

I’d like to thank you for sharing with us this great article. I work in Self Service area since many years ago and I never have seen an interface so intuitive and clear. This is the right direction, to be clear and fast. Congratulations Mr. Struppek
Best regards
Manuel Pino

sanjaya mahawaththa — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 08:03:02 GMT

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Maureen Hanratty — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 04:52:49 GMT

Beautiful, elegant redesign. The short cut buttons are a fantastic contribution—a more personal continuation of the “Quick Cash” feature. However, I think the rest of the Main Menu needs work. The user has to scan through too many options (13 in total) in the Main Menu. I’d prefer that some were collapsed (for example, “Deposits” instead of “Deposit Checks” and Deposit Cash”) so that options are reduced. Don’t believe that buttons for non-banking tasks such as “Donate to Charity” and “Buy Stamps” should be co-mingled with the banking task buttons—just adds more work on the user to differentiate these options from standard banking tasks. Can’t see why “Donating to Charity” is really necessary. This might have been a Wells Fargo requirement but really believe that each additional element in the Main Menu increases the cog load on the user.

Most importantly, is “MyATM Preferences” necessary at all? Dear god, if I saw someone setting their preferences while I was waiting inline behind them I would be tempted to smash their face into the ATM screen!