Thoughtless design

 – posted June 8th, 2007 by Colman Walsh     Comments (5)

Imagine you are designing a new bank. It is being built in a modern dockside development where thousands of people will work, shop and eat every day. You have a blank wall at the side of the building where you could fit three, possibly four, ATMs. The question is: how many ATMs do you install?


AIB ATM in the IFSC

In their wisdom, the people at AIB
decided to install one.

Why? With annual profits usually counted in billions, it’s unlikely that one machine was all they could afford. In any case, ATMs save banks money. And they save customers time. But the people at AIB weren’t thinking about their customers when they made this decision. In fact, they probably weren’t thinking at all.

Some design decisions don’t need to be user tested. They just need a dash of common sense and a few moments thought. Unfortunately for the people in this photo, both these commodities are often in short supply.

Categories Design, Usability

Comments Open | Trackbacks On | permalink