I am inaugurating vdl Labs with a post on POS payment terminals. They have been bugging me ever since I moved to Norway (now over 8 years ago). The reason is not so much linked to anyone terminal, even though some of those are badly designed. The real bad thing about them is that there are many! And each of them has a key feature designed differently. Be it the different placement of the swipe, on the side(s) or at the bottom end of the terminal. Be it the different (opposite!) ways the card must face during the swipe, either right or left.

Or perhaps both.

Of course the terminals owners also contribute to the irritation. Be that all too often at least *some* of the buttons are a bit unresponsive, and I must push them twice at least (One would expect machines which process sensitive information to be well functioning!). Be that these machines often enough are placed in the most inconvenient spot, so as to render the task of sliding the card through without hitting something (whether on the way on or out) almost impossible.

Sometimes both.

One last source of irritation has to do with a purposefully designed feature: some POS have some extra step in the payment flow, to allow the inputing of tips, so that the machine is delivered to you together with the 1-2-3 usage tips (”just fill in the total amount, press ok, then input the code”). Now, no matter how many times I have done it, I always feel unsure on how to proceed. That not being enough, I also always feel somewhat uneasy as the waiter/waitress waits for my tip: “too much? too little? how much do I need to tip? help?!?!”

I’d like to go back to cash -

In a future post I will see to publish more details, and photos

Tags: complaints, musings, real-world machines