you write as well as ever you did

dood, email me those photos of me+domo-kun? was half afraid, half hoping you'd post them here, but let's just keep them between us, ok? ;)

--FoSO Sun Nov 26 11:29:08 2006

I know I'm not the only one who thinks that ATM interfaces were designed for short people. Now, I understand the ATMs that're made for drivers, who are naturally at a shorter level, but as a person who is tall, but not uncommonly tall, I'm a little miffed at how low the damn things always are, and it won't help if the interface was designed by someone from the short end. heh.

My bus pass is a swipe card, and has the stripe and its value positioned on the card so that the driver sees the value and its expiration month/year while the reader reads the stripe. More importantly, the card indicates which face should face me, and which way to swipe. 

--LAN3 Sun Nov 26 21:14:01 2006

To be fair, it's easier for a tall person to use a short ATM than vice-versa.

--Kirk Sun Nov 26 23:43:36 2006

The first ATM I used had an LCD display inside a plastic privacy shield (that is, the top, bottom, and sides of the display, which was something like 4x80, had a 2" plastic flat extension, so you were looking at the display as though it were the bottom of a 2" tall plastic box). I recall this because my mom and I had to use the ATM for my dad's account when he was at sea, and we couldn't find the display anywhere-- the box could be moved to a range of up or down angles for different heights, and my mom and I were short enough not to see the display.

We probably could've gotten through a transaction anyway, because the ATM, lacking a big 9" TV in the middle of it, had room for all sorts of colored buttons-- one color (2 cols.) for transaction types (withdrawal/deposit/loan pmnt, etc), one for account type (checking/savings etc.) and of course the number pad was in the usual spot. I recall that a basic withdrawal transaction was conducted fairly easily from left to right: withdraw, checking, keypad, enter, and then money came out. But my mom didn't want to try it, so we tried it another time when we could ask someone how to do it.

Also, I have a recollection of Jack Palance using a very early ATM on "Ripley's Believe It Or Not," and being vaguely skeptical (as an 8-year-old, or whatever) that it would ever be a serious thing.

--LAN3 Mon Nov 27 01:07:16 2006

Probably seemed as weird as life-before-ATMs seems today...

--Kirk Mon Nov 27 11:33:41 2006

I'm a bit dyslexic, it's always been trivially easy for be to write mirror-image letters, or to translate/transpose objects in my head in 3D. Because of this, my brain automatically translates the ATM card images on the readers into alternate orientations. So I have a 60% chance of swiping the card wrong if I look at the image, because it begins rotating and flipping in 3D space as soon as I look at it. I have to stop and think for 5 seconds in order to align my brain with the image. In the image you posted, It looks "stripe up" to me.

It's all pretty annoying to me, I mean, you pay half a million for an ATM, and they saved $3 by not adding a second reader head on the other side ? come on!

--Mr. Ibis Tue Nov 28 13:00:11 2006

$9, by not adding 3, to cover the other orientations...

But I could see an engineer balking at adding 3... I mean, it's kind of a kludge as well... the fudamental problem is that these cards can go in any of these ways, and the cards are symmetrical.

--Kirk Tue Nov 28 14:28:31 2006

Yeah, you're right, they should do all 4. Still cheap compared to the cost. I can see not doing it on the little POS terminals, since they need to be cheap, but on those there are only 2 ways of orienting the card anyway.

I would love to see some innovative asymmetrical card designs that ameliorated this problem. They'd look cooler too.

--Mr. Ibis Wed Nov 29 17:41:28 2006

What's the cost you're comparing to? Annoying us, and making everyone's life wore by a tiny amount...well, for the engineer, that's free!

--Kirk Thu Nov 30 10:19:44 2006

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