LIRR Kiosk Usability
So today I got my first taste of in the field research. As part of my UXDI pre-work I went to Penn Station to study people using the electronic ticketing kiosks and even interviewed a few.
That’s right, this class wanted me to interview New Yorkers in a rush about their most recent financial transaction that I was supposed to be observing them partake in. Apparently, this class wants to kill me.
But lo, surprise surprise, I did survive. And I actually got some useful information.
The kiosks are surprisingly effective. Pretty much everyone who used them were able quickly and easily select where they were going and what type of ticket they were buying. The entire process was very smooth. In fact, I only witnessed a few bumps.
I witnessed a woman have to hit buttons several times to get them to work because the touchscreen was not responsive enough. This is a problem I’ve faced myself when using these machines and one of the people I interviewed also noted as his only issue with the kiosks that sometimes “the keyboards don’t work.”
Obviously any piece of technology is going to occasionally malfunction or be out of order, but that can be headed off a bit by having regular QA checks. As well as better touchscreen technology, but that’s an unnecessary expense at the moment as for the most part as the touchscreens work well enough.
The only other hiccups people seemed to encounter were after selecting how many tickets, not being sure where to press and having to search for their method of payment.
When reaching the screen above people would select the number of tickets and then many people weren’t sure where to press next. A lot of people moved their fingers towards the bottom of the screen where the “Go Back” and “Cancel” buttons are before moving up to “Press to Continue” button. Even people who knew where the right button was, paused and hesitated to make sure they were pressing the right button before hitting it.
Nearly every other screen proved to have a quick, intuitive movement to it where even users who were clearly unfamiliar with the interface didn’t struggle at all. So this stood out. Especially since one of the subjects I interviewed who claimed to use the kiosks every day said the only problem they ever had with the machines was long lines.
One way to solve this problem would be to put “Continue” in green down at the bottom of the screen next to “Go Back” and “Cancel” buttons where people expect it to be. Another solution would be be to have the page automatically continue once the user selects their number of tickets.
The reason it currently doesn’t do so is to allow the user to select both adult and children’s tickets. If you were to have the selection of a number trigger a continuation to the next page you could have people select the adult number and then the children’s number. This would add an extra step and risk confusion for those buying children’s tickets so extra research would have to be done, but it is a potential solution (if this is determined to be a large enough problem to need solving, most likely it is not as most customer’s most important needs seem to be met by the current system).
The other hiccup could also be contributing to the potential line issue. I saw user after user, when it came time for payment either needing to search their bag for their debit or credit card or needing to call over a significant other or parent or sibling to hand over their card or some combination of the two involving fumbling and a hand off.
The machines make a sincere effort to prepare people that they will need to use a card. They have the words “Credit/Debit ATM Cards Only No Cash” on the machine more than once. And even if someone was using a machine that accepts cash, you’d think they’d be aware they’d be using their card and prepared to use it.
To some extent this is unavoidable human behavior. Especially for machines that accept cash as people may not be sure what method they want to use to pay and if people choose to use cash, well, that’s always a more involved process.
But I do think the Credit/Debit only kiosks could improve their signage to decrease this time waste. The current signage, both the wrapping and plaque kind of blend in with the machine. People looking at the machine just see that as part of the kiosk without actually reading it. Instead, if they offered a plaque or wrapping that offered the same message, but included logos of credit cards and one for debit I think that stimulus would affect people’s behavior more.
Overall, though, the kiosks are surprisingly well designed (I say surprising because I’ve had my own issues using them). All respondents interviewed had an overall positive view of them saying they’re “very easy to use” and “more efficient” than the human tellers.
One interviewee said they chose to use the kiosks because it meant “less human interaction.” A statement that on the surface doesn’t seem to offer much, but behaviorally signifies that the kiosks are easy to use. As a fellow introvert, I understand taking the path of less human interaction, but I also know that no amount of human interaction is too much if the other option is a headache.
Seamless allows me to avoid calling a place and talking to a human for delivery, but if there are no good delivery options on seamless or it causes a place to get my order wrong or my order doesn’t go through, or Seamless is just incredibly difficult to use, then I’m still going to call in. This analysis of that statement is further proven when that same interviewee described their experience with the kiosks positively with enthusiasm and without hesitation.
