How is it that every time I use a credit card self-swiper, I always choose the wrong orientation first. I figure it should be a 50-50 chance assuming I disregard the hieroglyphically cryptic picture. However, since I do attempt to reference the picture, I’m convinced that it is misleading and poorly designed. Inevitably, the checker always has to grab my card and swipe it herself so its ironic that we’re supposed to be saving time and manpower with these machines. I could also go without their subtle judgments too. They’re the professionals after all, of course you know which way its supposed to swipe.
P.S. This same orientation anomaly occurs when I blindly reach behind my computer to plug a USB cable in. 50% of the time I’m wrong every time.
60% of the time it works every time.
And I thought this only happened to me! Thanks, Cowabunga Dude!
This has been a great annoyance to me as well, but after reading your initial blog post and then using my card incorrectly, I think I figured out why I seem to swipe the wrong direction much more than 50% of the time as pure chance would contribute to.
The genius designers decided to use a small icon to demonstrate the direction to swipe the card, but on that icon the magnetic strip is white and the card black. Honestly, with just two colors at your disposal, wouldn’t it be logical to make the magnetic strip black…like it is in real life?
I find the bigger annoyance to be that to do it as a credit card you have to press cancel. That doesn’t make sense. Of course the one time I don’t ask and press cancel on my own, it’s the one machine in the world that you don’t have to press cancel. So now I just ask every time, like it’s my first time using the technology.