[Sigia-l] NYC-CHI 29 Jan, 6-8PM: Antenna Design Case Studies/NYC Subway Vending Machines

[Listera]

"Christopher Fahey [askrom]" wrote:

> I thought (in my aesthetic gut) that the MetroCard machines were
> absolutely *brilliant* - until I read this!

I walk around NYC with a very City-savvy and gadget-freak 4 year old. One of
the things we have to do every time we take a subway (if not too crowded) is
to "use" the card vending machines. He picks up used cards lying about and
pretends to "load money" into them (which he thinks might one day allow him
to get toys at Toys "R" Us for free). He's not tall enough so he has to jump
and slap on the large buttons on the screen to navigate, and I call out the
labels as he proceeds or explain the logic. There are so many slots to put
stuff in that he now thinks certain slots are exclusively reserved (loading
up money) for Spiderman toys.

Anyhow, as folks around the booth look at this as another amusing NYC scene,
I've come to try out many permutations of clicks and moves, over dozens and
dozens of "trials". While the machines look solid and the screen layout is
very clean and uncluttered, the whole things is one gigantic missed
opportunity.

The article you cited underlines many of the failures. If the Antenna folks
simply put a dress over a rigid and flawed interaction/navigation logic, I'm
sure they enjoyed the fee but they shouldn't be too proud of their final
product. If they actually designed the entire enchilada, well, I'm an irate
NYC taxpayer. :-)

Best,

Ziya