The poor abused zero key

When I was getting cash today, I realized that of all the keys on the ATM keypad, the zero key was totally abused. I mean, you could barely read the zero. The six was nice clear as was the nine, but the zero was just not there.

This confirmed me something I’ve always suspected. My bank’s ATM design is faulty. Stupid. Annoying. Why? Because if you want to take out more than $100, you have to key in the amount including cents. Even though the machine can’t dispense cents. It probably can’t dispense less than ten dollars. Yet, there I am typing in all those extra zeros and abusing the poor key. It’s New York after all. $100 doesn’t go that far.

Now, in the scope of annoyances, this is not a big deal. But I spend a lot of time thinking about software and this is one of my pet peeves. Software should never make you do useless things. On ATM’s, Entering decimals for withdrawals is useless. On Accounts Payable systems, running three programs to post one invoice is useless. Software is supposed to be all about automation. So much of what we work with is 90% of the way there. Somehow, the software, and not the user, should be able to pull more of the pieces together.

We, meaning people who work with me, are hardly innocent. We leave options open on our software that our users just won’t care about. Indeed, just today we’re designing a better menu system for one client. We’ve realized that 15 different options can be reduced to three “easy buttons”. On the other hand, some of our biggest wins come from joining the pieces together. Indeed, once another consultant thought it was OK that a user go through three programs to create an invoice. We realized that once the user told us what they wanted to bill in three little fields, we could take it from there. We were heroes without modifying any of the existing software.

If software really annoys you and you’re interested in the topic, I’d suggest you read “The Inmates Are Running the Asylum” by Alan Cooper. I know that most people who read this blog don’t really want to know more about the guts software. They’ve had enough and that’s why they hire me. The only thing I can suggest is that you should know that if you hate software, it’s most likely not your problem. You should expect better. Cooper’s book can help you understand how you can start to demand better.

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