Visual Discrimination

Posted by: cwlh on: 04/11/2012

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I provide here a picture of perhaps the worst user interface I have seen for a long time. All of the Metro (nee Loeb) supermarkets in at least the Ottawa area have recently installed these interesting devices for credit and debit card purchases. The cashiers are really annoyed with them because each transaction apparently takes twice as long as it did with the older machines but that is not my gripe.

Take a look at the photograph and consider the following points:

Firstly, something like 12% of Metro’s male customers cannot distinguish between the red and green buttons at the bottom. I am one of them. If, however, you look closely (very closely) you will see that the button on the right has the digit 0 engraved on it. 0 is used in computing and elsewhere to mean “false” or “no” so it is clear that that button means “no”, isn’t it? Well, actually no. That is the “yes” button.

But it gets better. At one point the system prompts one for the type of bank account: savings or cheque. To select the cheque account one is told to press F1. But when one presses the F key and then the 1 key it doesn’t work. Look more closely. At the top, there is a key marked “F1”. I have asked the cashiers when the F key is used and they don’t know.

So, of course, I complained to Metro. Their response was elegant. “Our pin pads are designed in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) standard for visually impaired people.” I wrote back pointing out that, except for the obvious fact that everyone between Tierra del Fuego and Baffin Island is an american, I wasn’t an american and I am not disabled and so I couldn’t see what this had to do with the matter. I am still awaiting another response.