Why do drive thru ATMs have braille?
Because it is easier to make a single type of keypads.
As we’ve got four ATMs in the cafeteria, I decided to do a little field research to find out what the blind ATM experience is like. Our newer ATMs can be driven by keypad entries or by touchscreen.
Newer ATMs have a headphone jack - a regular set of headphones will work with this, so I walked up to one of the things, plugged in my headphones. The machine detected my plugging-in and greeted me then asked me to insert my card.
“Please insert your card with the raised numbers up and to the left. The card slot is to the right of the headphone jack at the 3 o’clock position.”
Inserted card…
“Please enter your PIN and press OK. The keypad is in the lower left corner. The OK key is to the right of the 9 key in the 3 o’clock position. If you need to make a correction, the correction key will erase your entire entry. The correction key is under the seven key, in the 6 o’clock position.”
<bip bip bip bip bip bip…>
“We don’t charge for a balance inquiry. If you’d like to make a balance inquiry, press 8 or press 9 to continue without making a balance inquiry.” <press 8> “For your primary checking balance, press 1, for your primary savings balance, press 2…”
And so on… The voice is obviously synthesized on the fly, but is clear and easy to understand. The touchscreen icons are translated to physical keypad choices. Assuming the user can find the headphone jack, the location instructions are simple to understand. All in all, I’d imagine blind people can use a talking ATM at least as easily as they could use a human teller.
A little self-feedback…
I was at a Christmas party shortly after writing the above and one of my acquaintances there is blind. I asked him how he does his banking. To him at least, the talking ATM is the greatest thing since the proverbial sliced bread.