Class Project Group N Report Part III: Final Design and Prototype Description

Dave Deitrich Walter Patterson Byron Warner

FINAL DESIGN DESCRIPTION

The final design for our new ATM interface is a high-resolution touch- screen display with additional audio input/output. All feedback to the user is displayed via a highresolution color monitor, and all input to the system is gathered via "virtual buttons" generated by the display and detected by the touch-screen interface. We also provide an audio input/output system for use by people who are blind or cannot read/touch the screen for whatever reason. In addition, the new ATM is enclosed in an "ATM booth", which provides a safe and comfortable environment for using the machine. A full listing of the features incorporated in our ATM design is included in our second project report . Features that we want to clearly point out about our new interface include the FLEXIBILITY of the interface display, the EASE OF USE of our interface, theINCREASED ACCESSABILITY of our interface for use by physically handicapped people, the ability to provide NEW FEATURES for the users at no additional hardware cost, and the improved ENVIRONMENT which provides greater security and accessibility. We feel that these new/improved features make our interface design superior to the current design used by today's ATMs.

IMPORTANT FEATURES
- Flexibility One of the strongest advantages of our interface design is its flexibility. The touchscreen display along with a high-resolution color monitor allows dynamic generation of tools, menus, and displays for the user with an absolute minimum requirement of hardware. Since all displays and tools are software-controlled, changing an aspect of the interface is as simple as making a modification to the code that drives the

interface. No hardware modifications are ever required in order to update the interface. The mosaic sketches for this prototype demonstrate the flexibility of this design. In particular they show how the interface can be manipulated and updated to help communicate information to the user about the state of the system. In addition the sketch of the check ordering screen shows how easy it is to create new tools for special purposes that are currently not available on ATM machines, and could not be added without a great deal of additional hardware and additional costs. - Ease of Use Another strength of our interface design is its ease of use. Touch- screen displays are particularly useful in situations where novice users are fairly common. ATM users can simply touch what they want to select, which eliminates the possibility of confusion due to indirection or poor mapping. In addition, the dynamic nature of the color display makes it easy to lead the user through an ATM task in a step-by-step way, which also helps to reduce confusion and make the interface easier to use. Finally, our interface provides constant on-line help for the user, so that if the user does get lost while using the ATM, he can consult additional documentation in order to determine the proper steps necessary to accomplish his goal. The mosaic sketches and ATM Display Simulator demonstrate the ease of use for our design. The ATM Simulator demonstrates the functionality of a touch-screen interface and the ability to quickly reconfigure the display. The Simulator also demonstrates the relative ease with which the interface can be updated to include new features without additional hardware costs. The mosaic sketches demonstrate ease of use by showing how the displays can be designed to lead a user step by step through a task, as well as display on-line help whenever the user becomes confused or lost. - Increased Accessibility It is important to consider physically challenged persons when designing our interface. We have included an audio input/output system in our final design to make our interface usable by persons who cannot see or use the touch-screen display. Other personal problems of a lesser magnitude that can cause difficulty when using the ATM can be encoded on the user's banking card, thus automatically alerting the ATM to the difficulty when the user inserts his card. The ATM can then automatically take steps to compensate for the problem. Finally, the ATM booth has been designed in order to make it easily accessible to people that would normally have difficulty with current ATM machines, such as people in wheelchairs.

The mosaic sketches and virtual walkthrough demonstrate the increased accessibility of our design. The sketches demonstrate how the ATM can automatically configure itself to compensate for certain problems, such as users who do not understand English. The virtual walkthrough demonstrates the aspects of our ATM booth design that help to make it accessible to physically challenged persons. Unfortunately due to time limitations we were unable to include an audio interface in the ATM simulation software. - New Features Every so often new tools will be discovered that make certain jobs infinitely easier. We can easily assume that future research will develop new features that we have not considered which greatly improve the usability of the ATM interface. Normally these new tools would involve extra hardware costs in order to modify the physical interface for existing ATMs. However, the dynamic nature of our touch-screen display allows new tools to be designed in SOFTWARE, thus greatly reducing the cost of modifying the interface to include new tools and features. The mosaic sketches demonstrate the ease in which new tools can be integrated into the user interface. An example shows how a virtual keyboard can be generated in order to allow users to update their personal information when ordering new checks. Current ATM interfaces do not include a keyboard, and the costs involved in modifying the ATM hardware to include such a device would probably outweigh the benefits. However, in our interface the cost of modification is negligible since only software modifications are required. - Environment We considered the design of a new, safer environment for ATM machines to be an important step in our design process. Although the environment is not obviously a part of the interface, we feel that a safe, comfortable enclosure for our ATM is an important factor in how usable the design is. We have made efforts to reduce distractions and increase security, which in turn helps to eliminate additional stress and concerns for the users. We hope that by making the user more at ease with his environment, he can more easily and effectively use the ATM interface. The virtual walkthrough demonstrates our concept for an "ATM booth", and points out many of the features that increase safety and security. In addition, other features for the booth are listed in our second project report .

DESCRIPTION OF PROTOTYPES

- Mosaic Sketches Due to the lack of time available to construct prototypes, we were unable to completely construct a graphics engine for demonstrating the full flexibility and ease of use for our system. In order to provide a feel for these important aspects of our interface, we decided to make up a series of computer "sketches" to demonstrate what some of the final screen displays would look like. All these pictures were done on the Macintosh using Aldus Pagemaker 5.0 and Adobe Photoshop 2.5, and then uploaded in gif format and stored in mosaic. We stored the pictures in two forms; the first was a reduced- size picture accompanied by a few sentences explaining what each picture displayed and pointing out the important features of each picture. We also stored the pictures in full 600x800 resolution so that we could show the full detail and high display quality of each picture. These pictures demonstrate the amount of information that can be communicated clearly by our interface display. Some of the pictures also demonstrate how "virtual tools" could be created to provide new functionality for users without incurring a cost for additional hardware. Finally, the sketches partly show the ease of use for our new interface by showing some sequence of screens which lead the user step- by-step through an activity, as well as the on-line help available at all times from the interface. - Virtual Reality ATM Walkthrough To allow better visualization of the physical systems we propose for our ATM design, we created a computer graphics model of our design, then animated our proposal in a virtual reality walkthrough. The walkthrough allows a better understanding of the size of the ATM enclosure, and allows close inspection of the physical features. The layout of the ATM booth was taken from a sketch included with our Project 1 report. The sketch specified a fully private, sound-proofed booth that would give users a heightened sense of security and comfort. While many existing ATMs are public or semi-private, we felt that a fully private booth, similar to a phone booth, would best serve the customers' needs. A fully private, locking booth with glass walls and soundproofing provides both comfort and safety for the user. The geometric model of the ATM environment was constructed using CADKEY version 3.53, then animated using the Interactive Visualizer software developed by the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Georgia Tech. The software runs on the Silicon Graphics workstations, which provides a direct video output used to make our videotape.

- ATM Display Simulator The ATM Display Simulator software runs under X windows using the Motif toolkit. The system divides the display into a series of screens, where each screen contains a set of Motif graphical objects. The descriptions for the graphical objects can be either hard coded into arrays within the software or read in from an external file. When the descriptions are read in from an external file, the information is parsed an stored in an array which contains the name, positions, and functionality of each graphical object on the screen. Widgets are associated with names of functions and stored in an associative array, which allows the proper function to be called whenever a widget is activated at runtime. An example of a data file used by the ATM Display Simulator is displayed below. The file describes a screen with a label titled "Hello" and a button titled "World".
X position Y position Name Callback UserData Type ----------------------------------------------------250 200 Hello Func 0 3 250 250 World Func 1 4

The name "Func" (which is an ASCII string) is compared to an associative array that contains the locations and names for all functions. The address of the function is then retrieved and associated with the widget. The user data field is an integer that is passed to the callback function when the widget is activated, which can be used to indicate special situations to the callback functions. In the above example, the "1" is passed to the callback function whenever the button "World" is pressed. The last field describes the type of graphical object. Zero indicates a button with a pixmap, one is used for a label with a pixmap, two stands for a text input box, three is a text label, four is a text button, and five is for a internally defined Widget used for special cases. In our current software the only internally defined Widget we use is a keypad. Each screen is given a representative name, which can be passed to a function called ShowScreen() in order to display the screen. The routine looks up the name of the screen in a list, erases the current screen, then shows the specified screen. Several different screens can be stored in memory at the same time and then quickly displayed and removed at the appropriate times. The ATM Display Simulator is a prototype that demonstrates the basic functionality of our interface. It shows how different screens can be specified as data files, stored in memory, and then quickly called up when needed. The Simulator itself is extremely dynamic; changing one of the screens is as simple as making modifications - User Scenarios -

In order to try and prove that our ATM interface is workable, we have come up with a user scenarios to demonstrate how typical users would use our system. The scenario shows a typical student who is trying to withdraw enough money to pay his tuition. Note the warnings when he requests too much money, and the errors when he accidentally enters the wrong numbers.
Computer: User: Computer: User: Computer: Welcome to the GT Banking ATM machine. banking card to begin. [Inserts Card] Please enter your security code. [Enters security code] Welcome to the GT Banking ATM machine. Please select a transaction; DEPOSIT, WITHDRAWAL, TRANSFER, SERVICES. Or press QUIT to end your session. [HELP] This is the main menu for GT Banking's ATM machine. From here you may select the transaction you wish to perform. Press DEPOSIT if you wish to deposit money to an account, WITHDRAWAL if you wis to withdraw money from an account, or TRANSFER if you wish to transfer money between accounts. You may also press SERVICES to get a list of other transactions which may be performed, including GET ACCOUNT INFORMATION, ORDER CHECKS, STOP PAYMENT, and SET USER WARNINGS. Press DONE when you are ready to continue. [DONE] Welcome to the GT Banking ATM machine. Please select a transaction; DEPOSIT, WITHDRAWAL, TRANSFER, SERVICES. Or press QUIT to end your session. [SERVICES] Please select a service; GET ACCOUNT INFORMATION, ORDER CHECKS, STOP PAYMENT, SET USER WARNINGS. [GET ACCOUNT INFO] Get information on which account; CHECKING, SAVINGS, ANOTHER ACCOUNT? [CHECKING] Checking currently has $1,057 available. to main menu. [CANCEL][SAVINGS] Press OK to return Please insert your

User: Computer:

User: Computer:

User: Computer: User: Computer: User: Computer: User:

Computer: User: Computer:

Savings currently has $982 available. main menu. [OK]

Press OK to return to

Welcome to the GT Banking ATM machine. Please select a transaction; DEPOSIT, WITHDRAWAL, TRANSFER, SERVICES. Or press QUIT to end your session. [TRANSFER] Transfer from account... CHECKING, SAVINGS, ANOTHER ACCOUNT? [SAVINGS] Transfer to account... CHECKING, ANOTHER ACCOUNT? [CHECKING] How much to transfer from Savings to Checking? [982200] ($9,822.00) *SORRY* You do not have that much available in your savings account. Please reenter your amount, or touch CANCEL. Touch HELP if you need additional information. [98200] ($982.00) *WARNING* Withdrawing $982 will reduce your account balance to $0, which is below the minimum balance you specified of $200. Since you have sufficient funds for this transaction, you may proceed if desired. Do you wish to proceed? YES or NO. [YES] Money successfully transferred from Savings to Checking. Press OK to return to the main menu. [OK] Welcome to the GT Banking ATM machine. Please select a transaction; DEPOSIT, WITHDRAWAL, TRANSFER, SERVICES. Or press QUIT to end your session. [WITHDRAWAL] Withdraw from which account; CHECKING or SAVINGS? [CHECKING] How much do you wish to withdraw from Checking? [160000] ($1,600)

User: Computer: User: Computer: User: Computer: User: Computer:

User: Computer:

User: Computer: User: Computer:

User: Computer: User: Computer: User:

Computer:

*WARNING* Withdrawing $1600 will reduce your account balance to $439, which is below the minimum balance you specified of $500. Since you have sufficient funds for this transaction, you may proceed if desired. Do you wish to proceed? YES or NO. [YES] (Dispenses money) Transaction completed. return to the main menu. [OK] Welcome to the GT Banking ATM machine. Please select a transaction; DEPOSIT, WITHDRAWAL, TRANSFER, SERVICES. Or press QUIT to end your session. [QUIT] Thank you for using the GT Banking ATM machine. Please make sure to take your card and money as you leave the booth. Have a nice day! Press OK to

User: Computer: User: Computer:

User: Computer:

CONCLUSION
We feel that our new ATM interface design is a vast improvement over current interfaces. We have increased the flexibility in the display and input, as well as made the design easier for novice users. We have incorporated increased accessibility for challenged users, as well as redesigned the entire ATM environment to increase safety, privacy, and comfort. Finally, we have designed an interface that can easily be updated to take advantage of future improvements and newly-developed tools. However, there are a few weaknesses present as well. A large weakness in our design process was the lack of imagination when coming up with our final interface design for the second project report. We inadvertently restricted ourselves to technology commonly available today when working out the features and aspects of the final design. While this resulted in a very "believable" ATM interface design, it fails to consider possible advancements in the future that could radically improve ATMs far beyond our design proposal. In particular, the possibility of using intelligent agents would have been extremely interesting to explore. Intelligent agents could be used to lead ATM users every step of the way through their tasks, as well as provide instant and dynamic help to them at a moments notice. Intelligent agents are an example of technology that could greatly benefit ATM design but is not currently available. An additional weakness with the project is the fact that ATMs are a difficult interface to improve upon. ATM machines have been around for the past 15 years, and constant

research and development has created an interface that is almost universally accepted, even though the technology to improve the interface exists even today. Although we feel that our interface design is a substantial improvement over today's ATMs, it remains to be seen whether current users will accept our design despite the improvements we have pointed out. Nevertheless, despite these setbacks we feel that this interface is a great improvement and should be seriously considered by future designers who refuse to accept the norm and wish to redesign the interface for automatic teller machines.