POS Touchscreens

If you’re going to replace an old technology with a new one, make sure it’s actually an improvement in the context in which it’s used.

Case in point: Touch screens, or rather touch screens used where they aren’t the best solution: PIN entry pads for point-of-sale terminals.

I wrote in 2004:

We were at the grocery store earlier today, and Katie was grumbling about the stylus-only touch screens they had for entering a PIN. Unlike actual keypads, you can’t hide the number you’re entering, because you have to move that stylus around instead of 10-keying it in.

On one hand, a touch screen with a stylus is great for visual feedback and for collecting signatures, because the store can keep things on file digitally instead of or in addition to a paper copy. And once you’ve got that, it’s reasonable to drop the keypad, since you can simulate it in the touch screen. But unless it can react as quickly as actual buttons, and react to fingers instead of a stylus, it can’t completely replace the way a keypad is actually used.

What I find interesting about this is that the industry actually fixed the problem by rolling back: Even though touch-screen devices are all over the place now (2014), I can’t remember the last time I used a touch-based POS terminal that didn’t have a physical keypad – often slightly shielded from view – for PIN entry. The occasional phone or iPad with a Square reader, but that’s it.

On the other hand, the Fry’s line notification system I griped about (originally) in the same article is still as lousy as ever.