prog | (T)errible user interface <-- HAHAH!!

I finally used cash to buy a Charlie Card last night, since they're finally converting Porter Square. (In the past, I've just traded tokens for single-use tickets.)

It took a long time before I realized that the ticket machine won't take your cash bills until you press a button located nowhere near the bill feed telling it that you would like to give it some cash.

That's jaw-droppingly bad UI along multiple axes.

(a) The feed serves no purpose other than taking your money. It does not need to be modal. It is safe to assume that a customer will not insert money unless they wish to buy something. Instead of refusing the money, it should graciously accept it and then enter a dialog with the customer about what they would like to buy.

(b) For every bill-accepting vending machine that I've ever seen, the way you initiate a transaction is feeding it some dough. There are decades of UI tradition in play here; it's what people expect. If you, as a machine, act differently, customers will assume you are broken. As did I. Only when I stepped back and looked for other options did I notice the instructions telling me to poke the screen first.

After finally buying a hot new card, I proceeded to try feeding it through the turnstile, where it made a farting noise, and an integral screen lit up with a message telling me to re-insert it. So I did. Fart. OK, turnstile broken! Try next one over. Fart. WTF? Oh, I see, I'm putting the card in upside-down, because the up-side is clearly the plain white one with a large orange arrow on it, and not the colorful one with three small black arrows on it. Folks, I can understand the cost savings of not putting a strip reader on both sides of the slot, but would it have killed you to clearly print which side was up? (And which side was down?)

Ugh... what a disaster.

radiotelescope adds that the turnstiles, if they drain your ticket of the last of its funds, will hand it back to you anyway. Other cities' subways will chew up a newly empty ticket, say THANK YOU and let you through. Our city's subway, on the other hand, is destined to have a floor littered with dead tickets.

I take it back if the machines give you a bonus for recharging a ticket, like (for example) the LAUNDR-O-MAT does with its cash cards. Otherwise, why would anyone want to bother recharging an empty ticket when it's easier to just buy a new one?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

the tickets don't even tell you how much you have remaining. Or has that changed?

the whole changeover has been one big pile of fucked up. And my monthly T pass will go up like 50%. I'll get "free bus transfers" with it, but that just means I don't have the option to buy a subway only pass anymore.

Grr.

No they don't tell you that! Z mentioned this too and showed me a DC Metro ticket which stamped a new value on every time it passed through a reader. I guess I haven't used the new system long enough yet to get annoyed at this.

Monthly passes are more expensive too?! Gaagh

The screens do tell you how much you have remaining, I think. Or at least the ones I've seen do. But they don't stamp it on the ticket.

This is correct of the screens, but in the likely future event that I shall be the owner of multiple tickets, I won't know upon arrival which (if any!) carry sufficient funds to buy my way through the gate. Nothing to do but stick them in serially until one works... or none work and I have to go over to the ticket machine again. Barf!

This is what happens when the MBTA goes with the lowest bidder.

Every time.

It's going to get worse, too. These aren't just the lowest bidders, they're someone's buddies who put in a low bid. The MBTA bought the machines, but didn't buy a service contract on them -- when they start breakin', then the fun begins!

(This is pure-bred gossip straight from a random MBTA employee's mouth, so you can of course believe every word.)

I bet KONE will fix them. KONE FIX ALL

If you, as a machine, act differently, customers will assume you are broken.

I'm now recollecting a couple of vending machines I've encountered in the past few months that seemed broken...

Hate the new system. With the heat of a thousand suns going nova. Did they not study how other cities (NYC, D.C., London) do things? Flimsy-ass piece of shit paper ticket. No easy way to find out how much cash is left. Up-side not obvious. Atrocious beeping sounds. Hadn't picked up on the shoddy UI, except for seeing throngs of confused and tired people at the Airport stop, though I can't say it surprises me at all.

And I've only used it a couple times. My god I can't WAIT to get back and use it as a major form of transportation!!

Here's some more crappy UI: I have a disabled pass. I can *only* use it in the disabled gate (why?) which takes the card in the front and, unlike all the other turnstiles, spits it back out the same slot. Then I can only take the card by grasping it with a firm grip on the tiny card and tugging.

Note to the MBTA: I have a disabled card because I Am Disabled. I do not have a firm grip.

There's a proximity reader but it doesn't seem to work.

Wow. They've really outdone themselves with the stupidity here.

There are also too damn few machines to handle rush hour traffic. My standard downtown crossing entrance has two, only one of which accepts cash. Compare this to the DC metro stops with banks of 10-12 machines at each entrance. I have seen many long lines. Even when people become familiar with them, it will still take 3-4x longer to get a ticket from the machine than to buy tokens from a teller (and that's assuming they actually work). Maybe the MBTA is hoping the "buy an outbound & return token" crowd will give up and splurge on a 10 ride ticket. But given human nature & the fact that you never know how much is left on the ticket, these riders may just give up the T entirely - or just be PO'd.

I think they spit the ticket back out so that you can use it for transfers.

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