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ATMs for visually impaired get noticed
Phoenix Interactive's work with four banks in the United Kingdom to provide ATMs with new technology for the visually impaired is grabbing headlines.
December 27, 2005
Audio-enabled ATMs have been on the market for a while, but ATM users rarely run across them. Some financial institutions have initiated pilots, but most of those initiatives have fallen off the radar.
That has been especially true in the United States.
During the late 1990s, the technology launched at the ATM. But it wasn't practical, and FIs soon lost interest, some experts say. Advancements have been made in Australia, but other parts of the world have been slow to catch on.
That's changing in Europe, however, experts say.
"They've always been more advanced with the ATM," said Chris Klein, executive vice president of marketing for Deerfield Beach, Fla.-based Mosaic Software Inc., an S1 company. "They've been doing things in Europe 10 years before we talk about doing any of it in the U.S."
Two perspectives: Europe vs. U.S.
-- Garth Graham, |
When you look at the number of visually impaired people in the U.K., the number is huge. ... It's a lot of people, and a large majority of those people have not been able to use machines. We should be able to accomodate them, but up to this point, we haven't.
Garth Graham is an ATM project manager for National Australia Group and Copenhagen, Denmark-based Danske Group - both are banking companies. Graham is overseeing the installation of London, Ontario-based Phoenix Interactive Design Inc.'s text-to-speech software at bank ATMs for NAG and DG in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The banks include Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks and Northern Bank in the U.K., and National Irish Bank in Ireland.
The four European banks, which have 1,200 ATMs combined, are expected to upgrade ATMs across the network with text-to-speech software over the next 12 months to 18 months. In Ireland, where Northern Bank and National Irish Bank have 300 ATMs, about 30 machines should be upgraded within two years.
European banks, Graham said, are making adjustments for a number of reasons. They're upgrading software and hardware for chip-card technology and more diverse functions at the ATM, including advertising campaigns. Software and hardware upgrades, he added, have set the stage for additional upgrades, such as those that would make ATMs more accessible for the visually impaired.
But like Klein, Graham doesn't expect the technology to hit the States anytime soon.
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"When you look at the number of visually impaired people in the U.K., the number is huge," Graham said. "I'm sure the same is true in the U.S. It's a lot of people, and a large majority of those people have not been able to use machines. We should be able to accommodate them, but up to this point, we haven't."
According to the European Blind Union, there are about 1.1 million blind or visually impaired people in the U.K. In the United States, there are an estimated 6.8 million, according to the National Federation of the Blind.
European banks, Klein said, are more concerned about accommodation as a general rule than U.S. FIs. And until more U.S. FIs are pushed to make changes, they won't.
That, he added, is primarily because no clear Americans with Disabilities Act guidelines have been set. It's too expensive for an FI to make an investment in standards that are "a little gray."
Anne Taylor, director of access technology for NFB, agreed, although she said U.S. bankers are willing to make changes.
"We have some financial institutions that say, 'How can we cater to your people?' And some have made it clear that if law does not dictate it, they will not do it," Taylor said. "Based on the ADA requirements, some are going to be reluctant to move forward. But we will be working with ATM manufacturers to best enhance accessibility at the ATM, and we welcome financial institutions to work with us."
"With the advancements in technology we have now, there is no reason why full accessibility to the atm could not be achieved," she added.
ADA regs need to be clear, concise
"Back in 1991, when the first ADA regulations came out, they said ATMs had to have Braille for the visually impaired," Klein said. "So we were putting a Braille sticker on the ATM, but it really wasn't effective. …So then we decided we had to move a step further. Manufacturers came out with voice-response … but it didn't effectively guide a person either."
The ATM was too dynamic for the software, and an effective text-to-speech feature on an OS/2 ATM never hit the market.
Now the technology is a lot better, but the guidelines are not.
"The cost is a big consideration, and there are still some gray areas (in ADA requirements) to understand," Klein said. "All the deadlines they've ever set have never been enforced … and if you do that a number of times, then deployers just begin to ignore this stuff."
Although manufacturers can't completely ignore the guidelines, they don't go out of their way to comply with them. One exception to that rule, however, is North Canton, Ohio-based Diebold Inc., which worked with ScanSoft to introduce RealSpeak text-to-speech technology on its Opteva ATM, after it was sued by NFB for not building ATMs that could be used by the visually impaired. And Longbeach, Miss.-based Triton Systems also has offered text-to-speech software as a standard feature on its ATMs.
The shift to Windows-based ATMs is aiding advancements, where text-to-speech technology is concerned in the United States and elsewhere in the world. But the mindset of FIs in the States is different, said Klein.
"In Europe," Klein said, "the difference is that they're in a situation where they're doing it more to stand out and differentiate themselves and to provide more inclusive services (than to meet regulations or requirements)."
London-based Association for Payment Clearing Services (APACS) set up guidelines that FIs are encouraged to follow in Europe. In fact, APACS released a "suggested guidelines" booklet in 2002, Graham said, that banks throughout Europe have been voluntarily following. That excitement, he said, will eventually spread to the United States.
Windows is pushing change forward
Marco Di Cola, executive account manager for Phoenix Interactive, agreed.
Di Cola said Phoenix Interactive is implementing its text-to-speech technology in the United States, but he would not disclose the name of the FI working with his company.
The software, which is compatible with any Windows-based ATM, is "much more advanced and more dynamic" than what was created for legacy systems nearly 10 years ago.
"It really guides the user at the ATM," Di Cola said. "It will tell you where the peripherals are in a voice that sounds like a human, not a computer. … It will tell you where the peripherals are, like where the cash dispenser is located from the PIN pad, for example."
(Read also, It's getting easier to add audio to ATMs)
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