Friday, June 13, 2008

A better ATM experience

I'm assuming that pretty much everyone in our audience uses an ATM on a fairly regular basis, so that means you're familiar with the way ATMs work. One of my pet peeves is figuring out which button I'm supposed to push for each option. When I heard that Wells Fargo was going to touch screen ATMs I thought that sounded cool. It turns out that they did more than just make the screens responsive to touch, they hired a user interface team that made the whole system more logical. It almost makes me wish I had an account at Wells Fargo.

The article is on the technical side, but the pictures prove the point if you don't want to read the whole thing.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sean, this is right up my alley as a user experience architect. This is the kind of thing I do for my job. Love it!

If this kind of thing interests you, I can turn you on to a lot of sites and pro orgs that focus on this kind of thing.

quizwedge said...

Does anyone here have a Wells Fargo account? I've been a happy Citibank customer, but they're selling my account to Wells Fargo. I'd really like either a national bank or one that reimburses me the fees when I use another ATM for when I'm back on the east coast, but the only national bank in the area I can think of is Bank of America which I have heard HORRIBLE things about. Any suggestions?

Sean said...

I had a BoA account for a while and I didn't have any problems with it. Maybe I'm the exception and maybe it's the squeeky wheel that you hear.

@rob fay I am interested in this kind of thing. I design websites, so finding a better way of communicating with visitors is always a good thing. You can either put the sites you have in the comments here or you can send them to me in a tweet - which ever you prefer.

Nomad said...

Wedge,

I am not a Wells Fargo customer, but I hear good things generally. Not so much with BoA. Generally, they seem like a bank where you'll love them if you never do anything out of the ordinary. But if you do (like travel internationally, take out a lot of money for a major purchase, buy a house, etc.) then their Customer Service is so labyrinthine and unreasonable that you are unlikely to get satisfaction.

Disclaimer: I work for a bank and it is NOT BoA.

quizwedge said...

Thanks, Nomad. If your bank existed out here, I'd look into it. Unfortunately, the commute to the local branch would be pretty crazy. :)

Anonymous said...

Personally, I am with BOA and am happy with things, although I rarely ust the ATM. (I like small bills.)

I do use Wells Fargo for my work, though. I deposit checks directly from my desk in CT. I have had no problems with them, in as much as I deal with them. I do not know what they are like for a personal account.