This assignment was a little more interesting than the lifeguard vigilance experiment. I had to stake out two bank machines, each for an hour, and record the number of people who use them, as well as how long it took. Then, I did a cross-section of the people in the general area, and compared the ATMs' customer bases with the total population in the area, to see if there was any kind of gender or age bias. Also, I got the chance to make fun of how poorly these things are designed.
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Step one: I went to West Edmonton Mall, the world's largest eyesore. My friend Robert works in Comic King, and there's a Scotiabank machine right outside of it. I spent an hour watching people on it and explaining human factors research to Robert, a geologist by education.
Robert's co-workers all complained about that horrifying beeping sound the ATM makes whenever a button is pressed. I think the beeping is a good idea, so you know you pressed the button, but it really is too loud.
This ATM had a laughable design. The output screen was small and black with dark grey lettering, and it was nearly impossible to read because of glare from a skylight.
I predicted that seniors would be the slowest with the ATMs, but due to good luck, I observed a couple fast ones. The slowest seemed to be teenagers. Only one person ever left his card in the machine, the very last person at the end of my recorded period.
My next stop was Meadowlark Mall. I know there's a large senior citizen population around there, so I thought I could get some interesting results. However, Meadowlark was deserted, seeing as how the only things open were the lottery ticket counter, the Shopper's Drug Mart, and the Safeway. Plus, there were absolutely no ATMs.
So I went to Westmount, the mall that was recently renovated and got a makeover. "The new kewl." I hate that ad.
There was only one bank branch inside the mall, and the ATMs were disconnected from the main building. Luckily, I found one of those stupid cash machines inside.
While wandering around, I ran into Jon and Wendy. That's her name, right?
Anyway, they left me and I observed this ATM for an hour. Well, more like 55 minutes. Despite the fact that it was the only cash machine in the mall, it only had 12 users, which was a little more than a quarter of what the other one had. Of those users, two of them gave up in frustration.
Take a look at this thing. The screen has that classic green text on black background, which works a little better than the first one. The instructions have been half ripped off. Also, the money slot is too far down. I tried it out, just for the hell of it, and it worked fine for me (except that I have no money to withdraw).
What seems to be the main problem is the card swipe, because some people swiped their cards more than once, and sometimes even several times.
Partway through the time period, I realised I was standing under a giant mural of Chris Garvey, a raver/Fine Arts student I know. Good god is that frightening.
