It all started with this tweet by Chris Callaghan, and I thought to myself — this is true! I don’t even drive and yet in my conscious awareness of the world, one thing I know for sure is that these things are badly designed everywhere I go.
I had assumed that it’s just an “I don’t drive therefore I couldn’t understand” scenario but I realised I’ve watched many people being totally baffled by these ticket machines — from tourists to locals to airport pick up taxi drivers who must use these things every day.
What is so very wrong with car park ticket machines?
As always, I’ve done a little research into Why Things Suck. And it turns that it’s not just me asking this question.
The Health and Safety Executive (the government dept in the UK in charge of preventing accidental death due to stupidity and/or badly designed things) also think they’re dreadful.
Their hypothesis is that it’s down to engineer-centred design — i.e. make whatever is easiest to build, and then throw a front on it. Reasonable assumption. Let’s look more closely.
