I’m glad it’s not just me who finds rail ticket machines confusing. According to a BBC report, some people prefer to queue for a real person rather than use the machines. Well, that is always going to happen. But I find them difficult to use and frustrating when I’m in a rush. I just want to go bang! bang! bang! and my ticket comes out. But there are just too many options available. It seems that the designers wanted to reduce the number of screens to go through, when it might be easier to have more screens with less options. Off the top of my head, this is the kind of interaction architecture I’m looking for:
- Choose a destination (shows most popular destinations, and a more button)
- Choose a standard class ticket type (with a button for first class options and a button for railcard options)
- Default to one adult ticket with increment and decrement buttons for adult and children tickets
- Option to print receipt while making payment
The Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC) states that “most people use ticket machines with no problem at all.” This is disingenuous. The fact that 7 out of 10 people surveyed are ‘satisfied with ticket-buying’ is very poor. Imagine if 7 out of 10 people were satisfied with book buying on Amazon, I think they would be very concerned. I really think a passenger survey is not going to highlight how the ticket machines can be improved, as most people do not spend their time thinking about these things.
Next time I’m at the station, I think I’ll photo the screen which confuses me.
I would have be more impressed if ATOC had have quoted the results of usability tests on the system, or if they had taken advantage of the Passenger Focus report to say that they would carry out usability tests to make the ticket buying machines ‘even better’.
