I normally try to avoid snark, but using the local library's self-service printer has pushed me over the edge. I'll try to make my criticism as constructive as possible.
Here's what the self-service unit looks like:
which looks like a bit of a mess, but that's only because it has a number of different functions stapled together, like the ability to accept payment in the form of coins, notes or a credit card, and the ability to print a receipt. There's no reason that should affect the ease of use.
Here's a close-up of the first screen:
It turns out that you can send documents to the printer from the library computers, or you can print from a flash drive [1]. The clumsy "Print My Document" (singular!) is meant to include both:
documents sent from the computer which should already have arrived at the print station, and
documents which the print station will read from a flash drive.
In my opinion, a simple "Print", or maybe "Print Services" would have been clearer.
Here's what you get after you click on "Print My Document":
There are a few things wrong with this screen. Library card numbers — at least in this library — consist only of numbers, so a full keyboard is unnecessary and confusing, as well as harder to type on than a numeric keypad. And the system is not ever going to ask you for your pin, so the prompt ("Please Log in using your card number and pin") is just plain wrong.
But it's time for a pop quiz: faced with this screen, what would you do? If you answered, "Type in my card number and click on Log in", you're half right. The other answer is that there's a bar code scanner at the bottom of the screen, so you can scan the bar code on your library card, and you don't have to type anything.
If you know it's there, you can see a faint light from the bar code scanner, but it sure would have been nice to have been told about it. How many times do you think I typed in my 14-digit library card number before I realized the scanner was there?
Here's the next screen:
This is the screen where you choose which documents to print, except there aren't any since they're still sitting on the flash drive in your pocket.
The system knows that! The system is again trying to accommodate the same two use cases: printing from a library computer, or printing from a flash drive. But you logged in, so the system knows that you haven't sent anything from a library computer. Logically, this entire screen should be replaced by one saying, "Plug in your flash drive".
Just to be completely fair, the system also has to accommodate the case where you tried to print something from a library computer, but something went wrong. I guess that's why there's a mysterious refresh button in the middle of the screen.
It seems to me — not a human factors expert — that the system would have been clearer if the two use cases had been separated from the beginning, with separate buttons on the first screen.
By the way, does anyone else think it's bizarre that a screen for selecting which files to print is titled, "Library Convenience Center"?
So what do I do now? I click on the button labelled "Print from US", which I assume means "Print from USB". I'd prefer a more concrete term, like "flash drive" [2].
When you click on the button and insert your flash drive, the system scans the drive and lists all the printable files, so you can select which ones you want to print. It scans all the folders on the drive, but just shows the files, not the folders they came from. That doesn’t matter if, like me, you only have five files, but it would be problematic if you had an entire project on the drive.
Note that the prompt at the top of the screen says "Please select your document below" but you can actually select multiple documents.
When you've selected the files to print, the system returns you to the screen where you can select the files to print:
Now the alert ("You don't have any documents") is clearly wrong, since a document is listed right there on the screen. What the system is trying to convey is that there are no documents to print, since selecting the documents from the flash drive for the list didn't select the documents to print.
Ok, less snark. The system is giving you a chance to change your mind. There's also something else going on, although if you're not familiar with the system, you wouldn't realize it. You can print in color or black and white, and you can print single-sided or double-sided. On this screen it's possible you can select several documents you want printed the same way (say, single-sided color) and hit continue to print those documents all at once. Note that the system doesn't tell you this.
In using the system, I never actually managed to print more than one document at a time, which I put down to library anxiety [3]; looking at the screen now I'm pretty sure I know what to do.
Clicking on the continue button moves you to the screen where you can select color/B&W and single/double-sided:
(Notice we've lost the name of the document.)
Although the screen says that you're selecting a printer, there's only one printer. What you're doing is choosing just two printer settings. You can't, for example, print less than the entire document, and you can't set page sizing, such as "Fit to Page", something I found out when I wasted several pages trying to print my gas bill.
You can set whatever printer settings you want if you take your flash drive to a library computer and print your documents from there. But the system doesn't say that.
When you've selected the "printer" and clicked on Continue, next you have to pay for printing. There's a screen asking you to choose between card and cash, and if you choose card, you'll see:
And it's time for another pop quiz. What would you do if you saw this screen? I'll tell you what I did: I inserted my credit card into the slot shown in the image. Nothing happened.
The screen is trying to convey two different things:
Start following instructions on the smart terminal rather than this screen;
When it's time to insert your card, but not yet, the card slot is at the bottom of the smart terminal.
Unfortunately, rather than express the second bullet as a simple declarative ("Here is the slot for your card"), the screen uses the imperative ("Insert / Swipe Your Card").
Also, the image is not correct. It implies that you swipe your card at the bottom of the smart terminal, when the swipe reader is actually in the middle of the device.
Also, and I understand I'm piling on, the image on the screen is not the same as the actual device: the actual device has a bump at the top where you can tap your credit card.
So the right thing to do is to ignore the image and follow the instructions to switch to the credit card terminal:
I touched the screen and was asked to confirm the amount:
I'm showing you this because it was very hard to get that green "O" button on the screen to work. In retrospect, I should have pressed the green "ENT" button on the numeric keypad.
The final step is to INSERT/TAP/SWIPE my card. At the top of the smart terminal, you can see the icon for tapping my card:
It didn't work. After a few attempts, I gave up on tapping and inserted my card at the bottom of the terminal.
Conclusions
This isn't anyone's fault. It's just a piece of history. Presumably, this system was the best available — or the best the library could afford — when it was installed. I'm sure dozens of these systems were sold to public libraries across the country.
And there's no easy solution. Sure, if the library had a spare million dollars, using some of it to buy a new printing system might make sense. If the library just had the price of a new system, there are probably a dozen other things they could better spend the money.
The one thing that gives me pause is that almost 8% of the county speaks Spanish at home, and more than 8% speak other languages other than English. A new system might support them better.
Coda
Between the time I drafted this article and the time it was published, I went back to the library and saw this on the credit card terminal:
which I guess eliminates the fear that my problems with tapping my credit card were due to user error, but it's not a good look.
Notes
[1] Or thumb drive or memory stick or whatever. This terminological conundrum will become significant in a couple of screens.
[2] As usual, the library would need a survey of some sort to find the term which was best for their patrons.
[3] Mellon, C. A. (1986). Library anxiety: A grounded theory and its development. College & research libraries, 47(2), 160-165.
Using a new library printing system is definitely one thing that triggers the most anxiety.
I feel your pain. In graduate school I grew so frustrated with school and commercial printing services that I purchased a laser printer just to avoid the embarrassing need for repeat tech support.
More recently a maintenance "upgrade" resulted in a workgroup multifunction device with only two thirds the print speed of its obsolete predecessor. High volume print users vehemently protested and it resulted in replacement by a faster device.
I have also experienced the "fun" associated with wireless printing using Bluetooth, Infrared, and WiFi Direct. While waiting for print job completion, each wireless technology brought back wistful memories of Centronics, SCSI, GPIB, and RS232 serial even with their bulky cables. Don't even mention Unix (before Linux) print commands that seemed to arbitrarily change at the whim of a sysadmin.
Now I have to try a 3D printer ...