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Foong Ling Chen
Foong Ling Chen

Akendi Alumnus

Trust them; they thought about you — and your money.

New York City sees over 50 million visitors annually, with numbers rising each year.  This is a huge number and an important one to consider when designing the MTA subway card machine.

The MTA card machine needs to be extremely intuitive for new users, as well as time pressed New Yorkers.

A Bit of History on the MTA

The first MTA ticket machine was installed in 1999. At this time, half of the subway riders didn’t’ have bank accounts, thus no experience with ATMs and touchscreens. The population did however have experience with vending machines.

During the research phase of the MTA, the designers compared the vending machine transactional model to the in-store experience. The two had opposing sequences:

Vending Machine

The user begins the transaction by inserting money, then makes a selection and hopefully the selection comes out.

In Store

The customer inspects the product, the price, and once he/she gains confidence they make the purchase.

Turns out people did not trust the pay-first interface. They much preferred the experience of buying an item in a corner store which lead the MTA to mirror that experience in the ticket machine design.

To this day, the simple questions mirror what you might be asked by a store clerk: Do you want an unlimited card or a single ride? How would like to pay? These questions per screen approach were designed to be fool proof for new users and tourists.

Last month, I was Amongst those Millions Visiting New York City.

My previous visit to New York was many years ago. Since then the city implemented a $1 fee for new MetroCards. While I was visiting, a friend happened to have an extra card with her. She wasn’t sure how much money was left on the card but at least I could avoid the $1 fee. The reason why I brought this up was because I took for granted the amount of money that was left on the card and paid no attention to it. As long as I could get on the train, I was good to go.

I refilled the amount on the card twice during my weekend trip in New York. The first time, without giving much thought, I paid $5. My friends and I were rushing to catch a train, and I knew I would have other opportunities to use up the card. I wasn’t sure how much a single ride cost, but I knew it could not be more than $5 plus the amount left on the card.

The second time I refilled my metro card was for my subway trip to Newark Airport so that I could fly back home to Toronto. This meant I only needed to refill my metro card just enough for that one last ride.

I sped through the list of prompts

Touch start to begin

Tapped ‘Start’

Which language?

Tapped ‘English’

Please select MetroCard type

Tapped ‘MetroCard’

Please select transaction

Tapped ‘Refill Card’

Insert your Metrocard 

Inserted card

How much do you want to add?

Tapped ‘Other Amounts’

Please type in the amount you want and press ENTER 

I stopped here. I wasn’t sure how much I needed to put on the card. I thought that maybe the information was on a previous page and I had just missed it. So I quickly put in a few coins, ejected the card and restarted the process again.

This time, I slowed down and read through the following menu:

My first attempt

Touch start to begin

Tapped ‘Start’

Which language?

Tapped ‘English’

Please select MetroCard type

Tapped ‘MetroCard’

Please select transaction

Tapped ‘Refill Card’

Insert your MetroCard

Inserted car

How much do you want to add?

Other Amounts

Please type in the amount you want and press ENTER

My second attempt

Touch start to begin

Tapped ‘Start’

Which language?

Tapped ‘English

Please select MetroCard type

Fast $9 Metrocard $1.00 Fee Applies

Metrocard

Single Ride Valid for 2.0 hours

>Tapped ‘MetroCard’

Please select transaction

Refill your card

Get Card Info

GetNew card

>Tapped ‘Refill Card’

Insert your MetroCard

Inserted card

Current MetroCard balance: $1.80. How much do you want to add?

$10+1.10 Bonus;

$20 +2.20 Bonus;

$27.25 +$3.00 Bonus;

Other Amounts

>Tapped “Other Amounts”

Please type in the amount you want and press ENTER

I ran through the menu again, this time looking for information that would tell me how much it costs for a single ride. This information did not exist. I took a step back and scanned my eyes across the physical kiosk. Nope, not a pricing chart in sight. Darn it. I quickly emptied out the change I had left in my coin purse and thought this was surely enough. I ejected the card and went towards the turnstile.

I was wrong. Back to the card machine I went. This time I looked around and asked a lady standing by the kiosk next to me. I asked her, if by any chance she knew how much a single ride cost. Her response was, ‘Sorry dear. I pay the senior rate. I have no idea how much you would pay.’ Now, I’m running late. I hesitantly put in a dollar bill and ejected the card.

This time, I was able to pass through the turnstile. However, I felt aggravated that as hard as I tried I could not pass through without overpaying the fair – but I suppose a fraction of a dollar is not much of a loss.

Nonetheless, entertain me for a moment while I do some simplified math. Let’s say of those 50 million visitors, half ride the subway. Let’s say the amount left unused is about 30cents (I’m being very generous here). That is 25 million x $.030 cents equaling $7.5 million. The MTA potentially makes $7.5 million per a year in extra revenue from unused cards. I’m sure this estimate is substantially lower than the actual amount but it sure opened my eyes.

Do you Have the Right Balance?

In the realm of user experience design, user needs and business needs go hand in hand and the principal task is to manage those requirements. This balancing act is not an easy task.

In this New York scenario, it was clear that business needs triumphed user needs.

Foong Ling Chen
Foong Ling Chen

Akendi Alumnus

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