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Comment by ninjamayo | Hacker News Reader

Not to mention the terrible new ticket machines introduced in train stations across the country, who supposedly have touch screens but require pressing on a specific angle the buttons. The machines have one of the worst UI designs I have ever witnessed which confuses and delays on a daily basis people who just want to go to work.

And let's not mention the new trains that have an LCD display for bookings which is actually not used because they still put reservation papers on top of the seat. I have asked several times ticket inspectors and apparently the booking software doesn't work and often crashes. How hard can it be???

Enough ranting!

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'The machines have one of the worst UI designs I have ever witnessed which confuses and delays ...'

The few stations where I've witnessed this, the bloke standing by the machine will just wave people through an open gate, provided they don't look like someone who will be a fare-dodger; which seems a very efficient way of doing things really?

On a couple of occasions they refused to do that, not sure why. Still, what is the point of ticket machines and barriers if you are going to wave people through based on bouncer principles.

Exactly.

Ironically, today, we read about a supermarket with no checkout yet we still have simple ticket barriers that quite often don't work?

> touch screens but require pressing on a specific angle the buttons

It's possible the angle thing is because your nail works better than your fingertip. I've had this situation a couple of times, and selecting with the nail definitely worked better, but my experience with this is completely anecdotal.

That is likely the correct answer. I believe the problem is the machines use a resistive touch screen (which respond to pressure - and hence the finger nail is more effective) as opposed to the capacitive touch screens that pretty much everyone else has adopted.

Not sure if that is the case. I have tried everything so far, fingers, nails and the only way is to direct your finger at an angle. These are not the same machines with the ones in Paddington, Victoria, etc. They are brand new and very unresponsive.

I also don't understand why the ticket machines don't use a QWERTY keyboard layout, makes it a real pain when you're trying to type in a station name in a rush.

And the fact that in shiny new London Bridge station, which handles millions of passengers, they have deigned to install 3 ticket machines in total.

Is it possible they're trying to make buying tickets a miserable experience to steer people towards owning an oyster card? Whatever their reason - it's stupid

No, not in this case. These are machines for train tickets, to places outside the oyster zone. London Bridge is a mainline station, so for most destinations it serves you will need a ticket.

Wow I had no idea, that's pretty bad.

> How hard can it be???

Welcome to IT \o/

I managed and worked on numerous projects like this and I know what you mean. However there is always a UAT phase that allows us to tackle issues like that. I dont think there was any kind of UAT phase here.

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