Credit card machines can be found in many public places, including grocery stores, department stores or any retail environment. However, these machines vary drastically in the interaction design despite similar or identical functions depending on the location. Even slight variation in a simple task adds confusion to an everyday act.
The first major difference between credit card transactions is that some stores have customer-controlled machines while others will have staff controlled machines. Restaurants and some stores will have the staff process a credit card. I have been in situations where there is a credit card machine placed in reach of the customer, but the cashier directs you to hand the card to them. Just finding out who controls the card swipe can be a confusing process though the presence of a machine within reach should be a cue.
An example that highlights poor design is when the teller stands next to the “self service” machine, and takes the card from the customer and operates the machine for them, clearly having experienced so much customer confusion so frequently, that the teller simply defaults to doing the action themselves.
Once the confusion of who is actually going to process the transaction has been cleared up a user must figure out how to operate the machine if they are being asked to handle the transaction. Depending on the particular machine and back of house process, this can be simple or complicated. There a few basic steps that most machines use, though I have been places where some steps are skipped and others are seemingly arbitrarily added. The steps include:
1. Swiping the Card
2. Selecting Credit or Debit
3. Approving the total
4. Writing a Signature
5. Getting a Receipt
Step 1: Swiping the Card
This seemingly simple act can be made more or less difficult depending on the design of the machine. Some have excellent intuitive designs, others are clunky. The affordances and mapping here are typically quite good. There is usually a thin slot of some sort that allows for your card to pass through. Most people understand that the machine has to read the black magnetic stripe so they know that the strip should be in the machine. If there is a shallow slot for swiping, then the possibilities are limited to having the stripe face left or right. Some machines give feedback in the form of a tone if the card was swiped correctly, others provide poor feedback by beeping if a card is inserted at all. If the customer is asked to insert a card then there are four possible card positions, although if a machine is designed to accommodate the raised writing in only one way, then it is reduced to a single option, which is the ideal.
Step 2: Selecting Credit or Debit
Most machines allow you to use either a credit or debit card to pay. Ignoring the fact that sometimes people get these two types of cards mixed up since they can look almost exactly the same. There are difficulties with this simple step. At my local grocery store, after you swipe the card, the cashier asks whether you’d like debit or credit even though there are clearly marked buttons on the machine that say Credit and Debit, I don’t know what would happen if I did press them.
Step 3: Approving the Total
Again, it all seems so simple. Are you sure you want to spend x-amount of money for these items? Yes or No? Many machines have a very confusing system of Yes and No buttons plus a separate enter button, plus multifunction buttons. I have been in situations where the screen reads “Do you approve?” and there was a yes and no button, but I was instructed to press “Enter.” At my local grocery store it is now reflexive for at least half of the cashiers to reach over and press the “Enter” button for me. I am familiar with the process, but the word “enter” is rubbed off many of the machines so it’s understandable why the cashiers take initiative. The danger is that they approve a debit that a customer doesn’t want to approve.
Step 4: Writing a Signature
Yes, I learned how to sign my name in 3rd grade, but I look like I’ve regressed to 2nd grade when I sign my name on some of these machines. There is such wide variation between machines that it is difficult to know whether you are expected to sign a paper, sign electronically or not sign at all. Most machines do have a certain degree of mapping when it comes to signatures. If they want an electronic signature there will probably be a stylus somewhere nearby unless it’s been ripped off and lost. There will also be an obvious area where the signature should be placed. Some machines separate this area and some machines have it directly in the main window. The assortment of procedures and the often sluggish response of the handwriting system make for a messy interaction. To add to this I have been places where the signature area is hopelessly scratched up either by pressure from the stylus or from people mistakenly using real pens on a digital surface. The risk in the case of a design that uses the main screen as the area for a signature is that if it becomes scratched, then even when it is in other modes displaying information about actions and totals, the display is unreadable.
Step 5: Getting a Receipt
Some machines will print a receipt for you, sometimes the cashier hands it to you. Sometimes two are handed to you. One you are supposed to sign and the other you are supposed to keep. Depending on the store, the receipts can look identical, although there is a particular one the store is supposed to keep. A good or experienced cashier creates their own affordances by handing you one receipt with a pen and then trading you copies after you have signed.
Good designs do exist. The machines in Target tend to be a good example. Other stores have the credit card machine on top of the counter facing the cashier, which is uncomfortably high to prevent thieves from reaching into the cash drawer, but it also means that people who are average height or lower have to stretch a bit to read the credit card machine. At Target, the machine is on a low counter where you can comfortably/ergonomically look down. The card can be inserted in only one way and the screen tells you what the physical buttons do.
The ideal process would be completely standardized; something like the tap to pay system would make the process effortless, which is what good design accomplishes.
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