Oschadbank has installed self-service terminals. And I love automation: it lets you save money, make services cheaper, because an hour of a person’s work costs much more than an hour of a machine’s work. Well, more precisely, in Ukraine that’s still not the case, but throughout the civilized world it’s long been that way.
But Ukraine has another problem besides low wages. No one here understands what design is, how to do it, or how good design differs from bad design.
The terminal at Oschadbank is designed (the word design means “planning”) in such a way that only a handful of people can use it to make the payments they need.
When I first saw the cashier get up from her workstation, come out from behind the counter, and help retirees pay their utility bills, I thought these were just elderly people who were on formal terms with technology. But when my turn came, I became that retiree. Because I couldn’t pay for Ukrtelecom’s services on my own. And I don’t seem to be all that old yet, and I’m pretty well versed in IT.
And this is not a joke. Right there on the wall is a printed instruction sheet saying you have to perform 18 (eighteen) actions to pay for electricity.
If, when paying for the phone, you enter the number without a 0 at the beginning, the machine won’t work.
The bill acceptor is positioned at such a height that you have to bend down to slip the bill in.
As long as every machine needs a doorman, IT will never arrive in Ukraine.