In the sense of “listening, thinking, responding”, the subway ticket machine processes a range of input and responds with options, followed by a final response of the card or the card refill. It says welcome, thank you, and good bye.

Shortly after reading the Norman article I had to buy a new card, and despite having used these a million times, I (again) began the interaction by sticking my credit card into the wrong slots several times. Finally I decided to take a breath, and begin again, reading the Welcome screen, which instructed me to make a number of selections before anything was to be inserted. As always, I felt rushed, frustrated, and stupid for not being able to use the machine efficiently.

A few observations:

– there are way too many slots that look similar, and it is not immediately clear which one is which. One has to read the signs. The slots, which have the “affordance” of being ” for inserting things into” (- Norman), tell the user to stick something in. Having to rely on the signs and screen prompts (despite the bright colors, the recognizable shapes, and slots) is a failure of the design.

– the labels, being large, bright, contrasted, and ugly(they look like an afterthought), all scream for your attention, and are so overwhelmingly plentiful that the thought of reading through them without an idea of what the first step should be is stifling and frustrating.

– watching people use them for a minute, I saw that many people were having the same difficulties beginning the interaction and processing the payments.

If it wasn’t stressful enough, this machine is often used by people in an already stressful situation: they are late, they can hear the train approaching, and they have just a few seconds to buy or refill a card. As Norman discusses, a state of anxiety inhibits the necessary patience and open-mindedness for understanding unintuitive interactions. Seeing 3 or more slots in the state of panic really slows you down.

Here are too many slots that look way too similar right next to each other.

In the photo below, the second version of this machine does not have the cash payment option, and is a little simpler:

It is also a lot smaller than the other machine, which has scrolling LED text and a huge metal enclosure. It takes people a few seconds to realize it is also a ticket machine, but the reason for the significant size difference is not clear (it must be the cash storage, but the effect is that the smaller machine seems inferior or even invisible). In the image below they are side by side (the little one barely showing on the right side).

The ticket machines give me the impression that they were designed one section at a time as new features like the credit card slot, the touch screen, or the card refill slot, became necessary, and the designs were never integrated, but rather stuck to each other, delineated here by the distinct bright colors.

With the ATM machine, there is a standard proceedure, where every interaction is initiated by a user inserting their card into a clearly marked slot. There is only one card slot, often with a blinking attention-seeking light, that welcomes you. Even if the first move is not initially obvious, there is the instruction on the screen to insert your card, and certainly after a few interactions most users would know to have their card ready to insert to begin the exchange.

The cash dispensing area is very easily distinguishable from the card slot. It is located way below the interface, because it isn’t something the user has to interact with until the very end. Like the snack and soda machines that drop the selected product, there is an intuitive understanding that things may fall or drop down, so there is some intuitive inclination to look for the cash below the interface. These are never beautiful, but they are so easy to use compared to the subway ticket machine.