Fix POS Terminals, Please.

Point-of-sale terminals have had a serious design weakness for years-something that no one appears to notice.

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Before there was the Internet of Things, and before we talked about cloud conductivity, there was this device: the self-serve point-of-sale terminal.  

We’ve all seen these, and we all use them, usually several times a week. I do a lot of my banking on these, and I buy gasoline with them too. I get my boarding pass and luggage tags with these machines, and in some jurisdictions, you can pay your taxes and smog test your vehicle with them too.  

And they’re all defective.  

When I say defective, I mean they have a serious engineering weakness that has never been seriously addressed by engineers: the user interface. By user interface, I’m not talking about the GUI, but the haptics.  

To purchase a simple tank of gas (a painful experience these days), I have to insert an affinity card, then yank it out of the machine. Then I insert a payment card, which the machine traps while I go through a sequence of keystrokes from a password to multiple Yes/No decisions about the payment method, whether I want a carwash, or receipt. Then I have to select the octane rating of the fuel I want. Only then do I get to grasp that generally dirty pump nozzle and fill my tank.  

And here is the problem: there are people out there that don’t want to handle that pump with bare hands. In cold climates, drivers are usually gloved. Most touch screens will not work with a gloved hand. Even where they do, the spacing between the virtual keys on these devices is frequently too tight for use with a gloved hand, and the physical keypads installed in these machines are almost always too small. The keys are too small, and they are too closely spaced. Even worse, the haptics are terrible.  

At the dawn of ATMs, when I was a kid, the terminals used keys that were commonly seen in keypunch machines and electric typewriters. Large keys, with the keystroke of significant length operating reed switches. Feedback was tactile and auditory. You felt the keys bottom, and you frequently heard a click. They worked with bare or gloved hands. Plus this feedback meant that it frequently wasn’t necessary to look at the screen to verify that you had typed the correct password.  

Then someone, somewhere, invented conductive rubber and snap dome or membrane switches. Cheap, easy to wire into devices and available off-the-shelf—and also a step backward in user-friendliness.  

Point-of-sale terminals operate by a set of social, human rules that engineers and software jockeys alike need to understand. I don’t like standing in line to use an ATM, or a gas pump. Seconds count when completing a transaction. When an 80-something retiree struggles to use a simple keypad to fill his Crown Victoria, the rest of us get frustrated, but it isn’t his fault.  

One good solution is RFID, like Mobil’s excellent Speedpass. Brilliant, easy to use technology. What did ExxonMobil do? Retired it and directed users to use the Rewards+ app on their smart phones. This requires that the phone allow the app to access its location, then prompts the user to input the pump number they’re using. Alternatively, the user must scan a QR code on the pump. How many possible mistakes do you think that a user can make with this system?  

Now, instead of your keychain, you will be removing your phone from the dashboard mount, possibly disconnecting it from its charging cable, removing your gloves if any, then working your way through the app. This technology is supposed to speed transactions up, not slow them down. I’m going to get an argument about this, but the fact is, the entire Western world is aging, and the combination of aging consumers and consumers for whom English is not their first language has slowed down the transaction process for essentials like cash and gasoline.  

For you engineers in the POS industry, please stop making equipment that’s a POS. Do what you have to do. Retinal scan, face recognition or at least chip card tap-and-go functionality that doesn’t require me to reject a half-dozen upsell promotions to fill my tank. I’m not a grumpy old man yet, but badly engineered technology like this is gonna make me one. 

Written by

James Anderton

Jim Anderton is the Director of Content for ENGINEERING.com. Mr. Anderton was formerly editor of Canadian Metalworking Magazine and has contributed to a wide range of print and on-line publications, including Design Engineering, Canadian Plastics, Service Station and Garage Management, Autovision, and the National Post. He also brings prior industry experience in quality and part design for a Tier One automotive supplier.