Would You Like a Receipt? 01-06-2007
Prompting users about whether they would like to receive a receipt upon completing an ATM transaction is a long common practice. As is the practice of after printing one, immediately throwing it away. How are users interacting with these receipts and what can be done to reduce the waste as well as provide an easier and more secure experience?
Through examining ATM environments and the methods in which users interact with ATMs we can gain insightful details, especially around how receipts are used. To begin though, we must look at what types of information are provided on an ATM receipt; usually bank name, time, location, withdrawal/deposit amount, and account balance. These receipts often don’t travel very far from their birthplace–usually right into a trash can, which has been neatly placed at the foot of the ATM. Also in an odd bit of anthropological examination it is interesting to see how users dispose of their receipts; sometimes they are simply placed in the trash can, other times they’re crumpled up or even torn up into bits. The later methods appear to be some form of rudimentary security implementation (I must confess that out of habit I too tear my receipts up).
But so why is that we opt to print a receipt, create waste, only to view its contents for a few mere seconds? Banks have even gone ahead and accommodated this practice of printing and throwing away by placing trash cans directly next to ATMs–effectively solving the surface problem of ATMs being littered with receipts. Yet the greater problem at hand still remains.
It seems that often times users ask for a receipt simply to view their account balance. Upon completing an ATM transaction typically the only option offered is whether or not to print a receipt, when an ideal additional option would be to view the account balance.