I really like my Oyster card and the Oyster system in general. However I keep seeing other people struggle to update their cards. I can’t remember how many times I’ve turned up to a machine to see it asking the last user to “touch you card here to update”. It means someone has wandered off and not really updated their card. Whoops.

I was wondering what you can do to stop people doing this. It’s probably quite difficult as this problem exposes a little of how the system works. It would be difficult not to do it this way since you can’t update the card before confirming the payment. In addition, most people are updating their cards in the morning, so they’re still waking up and they’re probably in a hurry to get to work.

Thinking about it for a few minutes, I think I’d suggest that the yellow circular touch pad be replaced with something that holds the card, like a slot. This would make the interaction be something more like:

1. Insert Oyster card
2. [card read]
3. Select ticket type
4. Pay cash or credit card
5. [system updates card]
6. Remove Card

This way I think users would be less likely to wander off without updating their card.

3:08 pm  •  2 November 2009