Fleet Bank (now part of Bank of America) lets you set language preferences one time, and stores them on the card.

When I go to an ATM, 95% of the time, I withdraw $100 with no receipt. Why not keep track of that and after a few of those withdraws, offer me that with one touch?

I’m on the autopilot as well at ATM’s. But the alternative step #5 (no receipt available) is so common here that I have automatically adopted my flow to a tiny pause here, just to confirm the message on the screen.

By the way, a few months back I stumbled upon an ATM that was out of order. But instead of the usual out-of-order message, I got to see a nice green standard Windows desktop with a few icons. Especially funny was my impulse to look for the mouse to reboot the server.

For example, after typing in your pin number at Target the thing loudly beeps at you and shoots your card out. Which even after 20+ times of using the thing I still panic thinking that my card is busted or I got my PIN wrong. Nope, the obnoxious beep is to inform you that your card has been ejected and you should grab it while the transaction completes. I guess I’m used to ATMs that hold your card until the transaction is done, because it is disconcerning to see your card spit out before the transaction completes.

At the Winn-Dixie grocery store the buttons for Ok / Cancel and Yes / No are shared. Along with four buttons along the top for making decisions. So you are presented with a screen that looks like this (with top row buttons “rendered”)

Would you like cash back? Yes / No

—-^—^–^–^

It certainly looks like I could click on a top row button to choose yes or no, but instead if you don’t want cash back you press the CANCEL button.

At Krogers if you want cash back, the secret is to press No when the thing asks you if the amount listed is correct. The screen says “Is this amount correct?” pauses 5 or 6 seconds and then displays “Press No for cashback.”

Argh.

My issue is with the fact that the ATM doesn’t *have* to ask me what my language preference is every time I initiate a transaction. My language preference could be hard-coded into my ATM card.

I’m sure there may be situations where I’d want to interact with the machine in, lets say, Portugese rather than my default preference of German. But the option to switch to a language other than my default choice could be on a sencondary or tertiary level… not the primary transaction path.

Of course, any ATM machine that didn’t recognize the coding on my card would have to resort to asking my language preference, but that would be a minor inconvenience only when I use a “foreign” ATM (and a potential selling point for my bank–“Whenever you use an ACME branded ATM, you can be sure we’ll know what language to speak to you”)

On a related note: I’m 6’1″ and also find myself frustrated with the ATM screen being too low. However, I figure that’s just a price I pay for being tall. It’s easy for me to crouch down to see the screen properly. It’s much more difficult for a disabled person to increase their height to easily interact with a screen oriented to someone of my height.

2 Annoyance nobody mentioned: Why can’t the blasted machine tell me there’s only SEK 500 bills available BEFORE I insert my card? I have to insert card, give code and then be told! Grumble, grumble…

From the comments it seems there’s a whole lot wrong with current ATM’s (or cash machines), not just the display. I’m still surprised how many interfaces we use on a daily basis, or atleast regularly, are poorly designed or engineered.