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Comment by Krisjohn | Hacker News Reader

I feel like you don't get to piss all over the design if you've never built a physical interface that has to be weatherproof on an exposed device that holds money.

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I feel like every interface designer should be forced to watch, clockwork orange-style as uninitiated users attempt to navigate their creations before they are unleashed on the public.

We already do, it’s called user testing.

Well then why don’t you fix them after said testing? There is literally no excuse for taking over a second to respond to a button press. A ZX Spectrum would be more responsive than most of these stupid machines.

Then do more and fix the problems.

This isn't about security or being weatherproof. This is about basics, like using a QWERTY keyboard that everyone's familiar with, and clear instructions that are easy to follow. I work in tech and each time I see one of these I'm glad I can pay by smartphone.

QWERTY isn't the official worldwide standard. These machines are also used in France, where AZERTY is the (imho terrible) norm.

However the 3-row layout is mostly the same everywhere so it would just be a matter of swapping plastic overlays & keymaps in software.

This machine is in the UK.

Obviously, where else would you find such pettiness?

Relying upon a machine that is so complex and frustrating to use far outweighs the tiny loss of revenue for when people pass on unused parking time to someone else.

ok but no layout puts the "0" as the first digit

TIL that no layouts put 0 as first digit. Not US, UK, FR, German or so.

Somehow I thought the opposite, I was sure that my layout (Hungarian[1]) is about the same as every other, most probably a direct copy of the German, but nah.

[1]: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=hungarian+keyboard+layout&iar=imag...

Earlier typewriters didn’t have 0 and 1 keys [1] and instead the O and l keys did double duty. When 0 and 1 keys were finally added on typewriters, there probably wasn’t enough space to add them both on the left side. The fact that the previously used O key is to the right may also have been a factor.

[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Olivetti...

is it not possible to re-configure the machine to match the market it's going to?

I worked for a while as a contractor for Parkeon/Flowbird, and asked about the keyboard layout to a hardware manager there.

His explanation was that they did not use AZERTY or QWERTY because it wouldn't work for foreigners.

Also it must last for, say, 15 years, be installable by road workers, and deal with abuse from not only the theives, but also vandals and construction workers repairing the road and pavement nearby.

I'd say it's still super easy to vandalize though, by just squeezing a tube of superglue into e.g. the card slot, making sure one isn't caught on CCTV of course.

Luckily, most vandalism doesn't appear to be committed by people with the intelligence to cause real damage, they just spray paint their initials on it, try to set the metal box on fire or scratch or dent the case.

There's only so much one can do to defend a 1mm slot that has to accept a plastic card (ditto for coin slots).

That's part of the issue though, isn't it? Someone paints over the keyboard and you have no idea where anything is because it's not a normal layout for a keyboard. If it was QWERTY and then a numpad, some people would be able to use it blindly, or pull up their phone to check positions.

Like I said above, it's probably an idea that an alphabetical layout is somewhat familiar to everyone, but a QWERTY layout is only familiar to people who type. Not that long ago, fewer people than you might expect were familiar with QWERTY keyboards (no smartphones before about 2006). These machines are also for use by people who have never used a computer or smartphone, and, incurring the elderly people that councils have to consider, they exist.

I'm guessing at their reasoning, but "everyone knows QWERTY" is probably not as true as you think, or if it is, it hasn't been so for that long.

It could also be an international company that doesn't want to have SKUs for the keypad for every region (eg France uses AZERTY).

Fine, not everyone knows QWERTY. It's not intuitive, people aren't born with an innate knowledge of a keyboard layout.

But you also can't name a layout which is more familiar than QWERTY, and its regional variants (including AZERTY).

If you don't want to localize, US QWERTY would probably be the single most familiar layout globally.

I'm not sure this is true though. As said elsewhere in these comments, the full-keyboard version of this machine is fairly new (last 5-10 years to my memory). It used to just be an up/down arrow for adjusting how much time you wanted, and then it printed a sticker to add to your car window. The new version with the full keyboard is so they can just drive by and scan your license plate and ticket you that way if you overstay your payment.

It's not like these are machines from the 90s when not that many people had computers. The addition of the keyboard is specifically something that was done because wireless internet and computer vision improved enough to do away wit the older version.

I'd be earnestly curious what percentage of the population that lives in an area with controlled parking like this doesn't interact with a keyboard at least weekly. Even my 99 year old grandfather was sending emails from his computer a decade ago from his farm in the rural US. The target demographic here is A. People who own cars B. who need to park them in urban areas with street parking. Both of those are, for the last decade, likely to own a smartphone, I'd imagine.

It needs to be vandalproof because every time I use one I feel the need to hit the stupid thing. Luckily I'm pretty mild-mannered, but I'm sure many are not.

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