Could you lend me some withdrawal please?

C

I find it enormously irritating when cash machines offer me a ‘withdrawal’.

When I walk up to the cash point I am thinking about getting some cash. Some money. Moolah. Readies. Wonga. I have never uttered the line “I am just going to the cash machine to get a withdrawal” and I doubt that I ever will. Even if we go American English for a second do people ever go to the ATM for a withdrawal?

It drives me nuts. It makes me pause. It interrupts my journey to my cash. It delays me. It makes me make the people behind me wait too. I can feel the tuts as I get flustered looking through all the options, realise that cash isn’t one of them and then have to read all the options until I find the one that looks like the most likely candidate.

To use this to make a slightly more serious point, not bothering to match the taxonomy to the users’ goals is plain foolish. In my example I am irritated and perhaps a little apprehensive – how big is the queue? who is behind me? – but, if I am coming to your site to buy something and the same scenario occurs, you just lost a sale!

About the author

Ivanka

Ivanka Majic works in technology. She was Head of Design for Ubuntu, service managed Digital Marketplace through to beta, was acting director of digital for the Labour Party. She lives and works in Brighton where she works with the council’s digital first team, does a bit of teaching at Sussex University, and works with her husband on projects like restaurantsbrighton.co.uk and the BRAVOs. She has also started a podcast with her friend Michael which you can listen to at grandpodcast.com.

4 comments

  • I would agree if ATM would provide only cash; but it provides also bank account status, the possibility to change your password and maybe soon we’ll be able to read our horoscope 🙂

  • I think that, it is precisely because of the number of options that the naming of them is so important.

    We don’t really read menu options we sort of scan them looking for the closest fit to what we have in mind – or sniffing for the closest match, hence information scent – so the danger of using internal vocabulary is that people have to work harder to find what they are looking for. Fine if it is a question of getting some money for yourself – the reward is obvious – but not so ok when you are trying to sell them something.

    ‘Cash withdrawal’ would be a better option or ‘withdraw cash’ – but ‘withdrawal’? That is what the bank counts at the end of the day, not what the customers do.

  • HSBC cash machines have a “cash” option, and its title is bigger than the others. Finally a cash machne that want us to get our money from it (remember that banks want you ‘not’ to take your money away from them, that is their business).

By Ivanka

About Author

Ivanka

Ivanka Majic works in technology. She was Head of Design for Ubuntu, service managed Digital Marketplace through to beta, was acting director of digital for the Labour Party. She lives and works in Brighton where she works with the council’s digital first team, does a bit of teaching at Sussex University, and works with her husband on projects like restaurantsbrighton.co.uk and the BRAVOs. She has also started a podcast with her friend Michael which you can listen to at grandpodcast.com.

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