Bank Logos
Wow its like buses I don’t post for two weeks and then two come along at once. There might even be three if I have to rant again about spam comments on blogs (yes I’m still getting hundreds a day!).
Anyway…. user interfaces, it seems to be a thing that computer scientists are not very good at (well at least some anyway). You either get the Apple’s of this world (iPod / iPhone / Mac) which are simple but powerful interfaces that are really easy to use or you get others of this world that are not so good. I’m not going to name and shame anyone in particular at this point but I am going to tell you of an experience I had at the weekend.
So I had a cheque to deposit into my bank account and I’ve used a fantastic piece of technology that allows you to deposit the cheque using a slightly adapted ATM. Using your cash card as normal but selecting the deposit check, you are asked to insert it into the machine (like put in notes when paying for things). It then scans the image and works out the amount that is being deposited, all sounds great and its worked everytime I’ve used it before. But typically when I’m in a rush to be somewhere in the next 10 minutes the technology lets me down. So up on the screen comes a nice little image of the cheque and the amount to deposit is £0.00!!! bugger I thought. Ah but there is an amend button, great I thought I’ll press the amend button and enter the true amount. So I press the amend button and nothing happens… so I press it again assuming that it didnt register the click. Still nothing, so being a computer scientist I thought oh stupid programmer at the other end has forgotten to program this bit! So i pressed the cancel button and stood in the queue to do it with a person.
When I got to the person she said to me had I tried the machine to cash the cheque I said yes but it was unable to scan it and came up with £0.00. She said oh you can press the amend button and so I said yes but then it didnt do anything. She said oh yeah once you press amend you just enter the amount there is no message!!!! Now maybe because it was early on a Saturday morning but doesnt this seem stupid!
About 10 minutes later I was explain to my other half why it had taken me so long to cash the cheque and I found myself saying I’m not surprised computer scientists are never very good when it comes to interfaces. I did wonder what I expected to see, something like a new screen maybe asking for the amended amount or either a message once the amend button was pressed saying please enter the new amount. Maybe that was asking for to much I’m not quite sure but it did sound like the lady behind the desk had answered that question quite a few times before!
I’m not going to mention the bank in question because that is probably unfair, when the technology works I think its brilliant and a great way of getting through more people. But it did seem like they were missing the usability testing on the functionality when it was being developed.
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