I don’t understand why ATMs are so poorly designed. These are customer facing devices and represent an extension of the company/brand. It’s like having a slow, rude and dumb person at the counter (some people might argue that you do find this, but usually the bank tries hard to have smiley customer service staff – even if they force them to smile).

I haven’t seen other ATMs with this problem, but the ANZ ATM makes you enter the “.00″ when entering a withdrawal amount. Why make me press 3 more buttons to tell it I want zero cents? It doesn’t even dispense coins so why do I need to tell it? I think all ATMs in Australia only dispense $20 and $50 notes. Why not have a $20 button and a $50 button and just press them for the number of notes you want of each denomination? You could perhaps have shortcut buttons for large amounts (ie. $600).

Another issue that I’ve discussed with people is why the withdrawal amounts don’t get customised. A reasonable number of people that I’ve asked about this withdraw amounts that aren’t preset (ie. they have to enter the amount with the key pad), but it’s almost always the same amount. Why doesn’t the ATM see that the last 20 times you’ve withdrawn the same amount and give you that option to withdraw it again?

There really is no (good) excuse why ATMs are so bad.