News

Focus on accessibility

NCR and Royal Bank of Canada recently spent a week querying groups of ATM users to find out which accessibility enhancements will make their way out of the test labs and into the real world.

December 27, 2001

Mark Grossi's job requires him to be equal parts sociologist, fortune teller and technology geek.

As chief technology officer of NCR's Self-Service division, Grossi heads up a team of 30 designers who try to determine which features consumers will see on ATMs of the future -- and which features will never make it off the drawing board.

 "Our whole mission in life is to look ahead three to five years," Grossi said. "We examine trends in both social behavior and technology to determine which new concepts make sense."

Grossi's latest project is improving accessibility for ATM users, including those with vision, hearing, mobility, speech or cognitive impairments. To that end, his team in Dundee, Scotland has produced a prototype outfitted with a variety of features designed to enhance accessibility, from a second, lower keypad to large navigational buttons that allow users to forgo the standard keypad altogether.

NCR's prototype features a bevy of features designed to improve ATM accessibility, from a second, lower keyboard to large navigational buttons that allow users to maneuver their way through transactions without using the keyboard at all.

He just spent a week in Toronto with the machine, conducting focus groups with ATM users in cooperation with the Royal Bank of Canada. About 100 users with a variety of special needs tried out the machine and offered their feedback. Grossi said the project provided an invaluable opportunity to get the machine out of the test lab and into the hands of real users.

"At the end of the day, these are the guys that decide whether there's value in it or not," Grossi said.

Users offer insights that sometimes surprise the engineers. While Grossi and his team had assumed that most wheelchair users approach an ATM head-on, for instance, he said that many wheelchair users in the focus group came at the machine from the side.

James McGuire, Royal Bank's senior manager of self-serve networks, agreed with Grossi, noting that a deaf ATM user asked if small mirrors could be placed on the ATM so he could keep an eye on his two small children while performing a transaction.

"It's surprising how sometimes it's the simple things," McGuire said. "That's a change that we could accommodate fairly easily and inexpensively right now."

Royal Bank, which deployed the first ATM in North America with audio lead through functionality in 1997, is proud of its proactive stance on ATM accessibility. McGuire said the bank has worked closely with the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) to help establish accessibility guidelines akin to those required under the Americans with Disabilities Act in the U.S.

Royal Bank has installed 15 audio-enabled ATMs to date, with plans to add another 235 by the end of 2002. It has received three awards for its audio ATMs, from The Association of Access Engineering Specialists in the U.S., the Canadian National Institute for the Blind and the Society of Canadian Office Automation Professionals.  

The bank is currently rolling out a group of NCR Personas 86 machines outfitted with design features that it hopes will enhance accessibility, such as slightly lowered keyboards. Some of these features were the result of earlier sessions with focus groups, McGuire said.

The prototype recently tested by Grossi was loaded with a number of unusual features. Among them: a second keyboard positioned below the cash dispenser where it would be readily accessible by wheelchair users; a set of three large buttons that enable users to navigate through transactions without using the keyboard, especially handy for those with impairments that make it difficult to press individual keys; and a fixture that emits tiny puffs of hot air to help visually impaired users locate the card reader.

All together, the prototype had 57 design features designed to improve accessibility. "Of course, we're not proposing to put them all on one machine. That would confuse the socks off of people," Grossi said.

With good humor, he accepts the fact that some of the more unusual design elements – such as the hot air at the card reader – tend to be met with incredulity. "It's not blowing at gale force," he joked. "We're not in the business of blowing the customers away from the machine."

Grossi compared his prototype to the concept cars rolled out by automobile manufacturers at trade shows. "You never actually see one of those concept cars on the road, but you will see some of those elements creep into the next generation of cars."

While it's too early to predict which features may show up on future generations of ATMs, several elements earned rave reviews from the focus groups. Grossi was especially pleased with the performance of the large navigational buttons, which he calls "nudge buttons." Users maneuver their way through transactions by pressing left and right buttons to move in those directions on a touchscreen, then hit a square center button to make a selection.

Ultimately, Grossi said, the desire is to offer individualized experiences for all ATM users, whether or not they have impairments. "So when you put in your card, you'll have a profile that says you want to use the touchscreen with text to speech, for instance. Then mine might say I want to use the touchscreen with nudge buttons and hot air."

Creating the one-of-a-kind prototypes for testing purposes is costly, Grossi said, but it's part of NCR's commitment to advanced functionality. "If we don't do it, the whole business will stagnate," he said.