Why are ATMs so keen to show me my balance?
I live in the UK, the following is representative of ATMs here, dunno about elsewhere.
When I go to the ATM, my desired user experience is usually:
- enter my card and PIN
- press the button for how much money I want to withdraw.
I can't speak for everyone, but this covered 99% of my usage. Ideally this would involve exactly 5 button presses in total (4 PIN + 1 amount).
Most ATMs seem to put a couple of extra steps into the workflow. The conversation usually goes something like this:
What service would you like? View Balance, Cash & Reciept, Cash, ...etc... [ Cash ]
How much do you want to withdraw? [ £X ]
Would you like to see you balance first? [ No ]
These machines have different software depending on who owns them (all of which have bad menu design IMO) nevertheless they all seem to agree that seeing the balance is so important that they will offer you the option twice, even to go as far as interrupting the workflow in order to suggest it a second time. They seem pretty sure I hit the "Cash" button by mistake. I have seen some machines which even offer you the balance three times.
Considering the other design quirks are not consistent between vendors, I don't think this is a coincidence. What's the rationale behind this nagging design?