Most adults have used an Automated Teller Machine (ATM) card in their lifetime. But these machines, as high-tech as we imagined they were back in the day, had a design flaw that caused a lot of users a lot of trouble.
Human Error Problem: ATM users would insert their cards, request cash, take it, and walk away, leaving their cards behind.
Solution: a “forcing function” was as simple as a 15-minute code update sent out to all the ATMs in a matter of seconds.
So what is a “forcing function,” and how did it fix the problem of the forgotten ATM card?
People used to insert their cards, request cash, take it, and walk away, leaving their cash cards behind. It was a natural enough response, as the main objective of the action had been achieved: obtaining money.
The task was thus mentally marked as complete before all necessary transaction stages were carried out.
After analysis, the systems designers came up with a very simple, effective solution.
The target objective of the task was to obtain money, placing this stage at the very end of the transaction would avoid the problem. Hence, the card is now given back before the money is.
Functions such as this relieve the user of the responsibility of deciding what actions are appropriate whilst interacting with the system and are very effective in preventing dangerous incidents.
PLEASE NOTE: in today’s ATM’s there are even additional LAYERS of protection because, YES, some people were still forgetting their cards and walking/driving away. So today, most ATM’s require the card to be physically removed before providing the money or if the card is left, the machine will capture the card for safe keeping.